As the clock told the third quarter with a small silvery chime, as if it were a town clock in fairyland, Juanita started suddenly from her half-reclining position, and listened intently, with her face towards the open window.
“A footstep!” she exclaimed. “I heard a footstep on the terrace.”
“My dearest, I know your hearing is quicker than mine; but this time it is your fancy that heard and not your ears. I heard nothing. And who should be walking on the terrace at such an hour, do you suppose?”
“I don’t suppose anything about it, but I know there was some one. I heard the steps, Godfrey. I heard them as distinctly as I heard you speak just now; light footsteps—slow, very slow, and with that cautious, treacherous sound which light, slow footsteps always have, if one hears them in the silence of night.”
“You are very positive.”
“I know it, I heard it!” she cried, running to the window, and out into the grey night.
She ran along the whole length of the terrace and back again, her husband following her with slower steps, and they found no one, heard nothing from one end to the other.
“You see, love, there was no one there,” said Godfrey.
“I see nothing of the kind—only that the some one who was there has vanished very cleverly. An eavesdropper might hide easily enough behind any one of those cypresses,” she said, pointing to the obelisk-shaped trees which showed black against the dim grey of the night.
“Why should there be any eavesdropper, love? What secrets have you and I that any prowler should care to watch or listen. The only person of the prowling kind to be apprehended would be a burglar; and as Cheriton has been burglar-free all these years, I see no reason for fear; so, unless your mysterious footfall belonged to one of the servants or a servant’s follower, which is highly improbable on this side of the house, I take it that you must have heard a ghost.”