Whittaker groaned, and his eyelids closed wearily over the gray-green eyes.
"Oh, d——n this house!" he muttered. "It's bewitched! Why the devil did I ever come here?"
Armathwaite bound the injured limb tightly, and enjoined on Whittaker the necessity of remaining prone till a doctor arrived. There was little call for any such insistence. The unfortunate Percy was suffering enough pain already without adding to it by movement. He was persuaded to drink some milk, but the mere raising of his head to put a glass to his lips caused exquisite torture. Then Armathwaite left him, meaning to appeal to Farmer Burt for further assistance. Dinner was not to be thought of until a messenger was sent to Dr. Scaife, at Bellerby, and Meg and Mrs. Jackson remained with Whittaker in the meantime.
While descending the stairs, Armathwaite gave special heed to the shadow cast by the window. It was dimly visible, but it seemed almost unbelievable that any person of ordinary intelligence could mistake it for a ghostly manifestation. Suddenly a thought struck him, and he summoned Betty Jackson.
"Would you mind walking to the front door and standing close to it, so as to block the light which enters through the upper portion?" he said when she came.
Wondering what he was driving at, she obeyed. Then the true cause of Whittaker's fright was revealed. The natural light through the plain glass of the door nearly overcame the weaker rays which filtered through the colored panes, but, as soon as the doorway was blocked, the figure of the Black Prince leaped into a prominence that was almost astounding, even to one who looked for some such development. The artist who had fashioned the window had followed the canons of medieval art. The armored knight, whose face gleamed palely through a raised visor, was poised as though standing on tip-toe, and a rib of the window rose straightly above his head. Thus, the reflection on the wall bore a most striking resemblance to a man hanging from the hook in the china shelf, while the sinister shadow deepened markedly when light was excluded from the only other source. The discovery of this simple fact not only explained the apparition which had sent Percy Whittaker headlong down the stairs, but also showed why gaping rustics could terrify themselves at will. The closer they peered the more visible became the "ghost." Even Betty understood what was happening, though she had not heard the orchestral effect of the complaining window-sash.
"Mercy on us!" she whispered in a scared way. "Who'd ever ha' thought of the like of that? You must have bin comin' in, sir, the very minnit the poor young gentleman put foot on the second flight o' steps, an' that thing just lepped at him."
"Between us, at any rate, we have laid the ghost, Betty," said Armathwaite. "If Mr. Whittaker complains of increased pain while I am out, tell your mother or Miss Meg to pour cold water over the bandage. That will give him relief. Perhaps, later, warm fomentations may be required, but he is all right now till the doctor sees him."
As he walked a second time to Burt's farm-house, his mind dwelt on the singular coincidence that produced the shadow on the wall about the very anniversary of the suicide—or murder—which had vexed the peace of Elmdale two years ago. To one who was wont to relieve the long nights of duty in an Indian frontier station by a good deal of varied scientific reading, the mystery of the vision in the Grange was dissipated as soon as it was understood. Its occurrence was possible only during a few evenings before and after the summer solstice, when the sun had traveled farthest north in the northern hemisphere. Its duration was limited to ten minutes at the utmost, because the sun sinks rapidly when nearing the horizon, and the specter's visits were further curtailed by clouds, since strong sunlight and a clear sky were indispensable conditions to its appearance.
But, without posing as an authority on stained glass, Armathwaite was convinced that the window which had produced this disturbing phenomenon was not modern. The elder Walker had spoken of the Grange as a "seventeenth-century dwelling," and there was every likelihood that the painted effigy of the hero of Crecy had been installed by the original builder, who might have cherished the belief that he was a descendant of the gallant Edward and the Fair Maid of Kent.