"But there is the place where the smuggler was killed," objected Rosamond.
"Well, if he is killed, he can do no harm. I should not like to meet a live smuggler, but I don't see how one who was killed forty years ago can hurt me."
"Vevette does not believe in ghosts," said Betty.
"I would not say that exactly," I returned. "There are many such stories which seem to rest on good proof. But I think we of the reformed faith in France do not fear such things as much as people do here. Our preachers teach us that overmuch terror of ghosts and the like argues somewhat of a distrust in the care of our Heavenly Father. I have been in many very ghostly places, and at ghostly hours too, as Andrew knows, but I never saw anything more alarming than owls, bats, and spiders. We had a ghost in the château, but I was not nearly so much afraid of the white chevalier as I was of the village priest."
"Well, I don't pretend to be above all human weakness myself," said Betty.
"That is a good thing, my dear, for no one would believe you if you did," interrupted Andrew.
"You are very civil, to take the words out of my mouth," returned Betty. "I suppose that is French politeness, of which we hear so much. I mean to say that I do not hold myself to be wiser than all my elders, and than the rector himself, who believes in ghosts, and is very powerful in laying them. Why, he is sent for all along the coast, even to the Land's End and clear into Devonshire, for that purpose."
"I should think he would clear his own parish, then," said I, rather flippantly.
"But, Vevette, I really did see something on the path to the Well House one evening," said Rosamond, who had not yet spoken. "It was only last Tuesday. I had been down to the shore with a basket for old Madge, and was coming up again, slowly, when just at the turn of the road I saw a man and a woman walking slowly along. The woman had a veil over her head and a dark gray gown like Betty's homespun, and the gentleman was tall and slim and wore a gray cloak. I wondered who they could be, but I never thought of their being anything uncommon till I came up near them; and behold, they were gone like a flash!"
"Perhaps they had slipped aside into the bushes," said I. "There is a ruined cottage close by; perhaps they went into that. Did you look to see?"