He had his arm around her, and was leading her out of the misty night into the warm, bright room, and his voice had the light sound of laughter; but at that word ghost she started and trembled, and her voice was very serious as she answered—
“A ghost, yes! It was just like the footfall of a ghost—so slow, so soft, so mysterious. I believe it was a ghost, Godfrey—a Strangway ghost. Some of them must revisit this house.”
CHAPTER IV
“Who will dare
To pluck thee from me? And of thine own will,
Full well I feel that thou wouldst not leave me.”
The sunshine of a summer morning, streaming in through mullioned windows that looked due south, raised Juanita’s spirits, and dispersed her fears. It was impossible to feel depressed under such a sky. She had been wakeful for a considerable part of the night, brooding upon that ghostly footstep which had sent such a sudden chill to her warm young heart, but that broad clear light of morning brought common sense.
“I dare say it was only some lovesick housemaid, roaming about after all the others had gone to bed, in order to have a quiet think about her sweetheart, and what he said to her last Sunday as they went home from church. I know how I used to walk about with no company but my thoughts of you, Godfrey, and how sweet it used to be to go over all your dearest words—over and over again,—and no doubt the heart of a housemaid is worked by just the same machinery that sets mine going—and her thoughts would follow the same track.”
“That is what we are taught to believe, dearest, in this enlightened age.”
“Why should it be a ghost?” pursued Juanita, leaning back in her bamboo chair, and lazily enjoying the summer morning, somewhat languid after a sleepless night.