"I am taking tea here. I'm a visitor. I have been here all the evening."
"And I've been here twenty years. I'm the cook."
The young man loosed his hold, and dropped on the floor. He rocked back and forth, in silent convulsions of laughter.
"The cook! Great Cæsar, the cook! Oh, dear me! Stop me, somebody. What—what did you do it for?" he gasped, between the paroxysms.
"Hush! Young Mr. Merryweather, is it? Do be quiet, sir! We're close by the verandah. Was—was she frightened, sir?"
"She? Who? One of 'em was."
"She—the old one. I wouldn't frighten Miss Margaret; but she has too much sense. Was the other one scared, sir?"
"Into fits, very near. You did it well, Mrs. Cook! I couldn't have done it better,—look here! I shall have to tell them, though. I came expressly to find out—"
Groping in the dark, Frances clutched his arm again, this time in a gentler grasp. "Don't you do it, sir!" she whispered. "Young gentleman, don't you do it! If you do, she'll stay here all her days. No one can't stand her, sir, and this were the only way. Hark! Save us! What's that?"
No glimmer of light could penetrate to the closet where they stood, in the thickness of the wall, but a tremendous peal of thunder shook the house, and Miss Sophronia's voice could be heard calling frantically on Gerald to come back.