"Ay, sir," replied John; "at about nine o'clock this morning, as I was walking along with my gun, on his lordship's estate, I suddenly saw Mistress Claribel coming straight in front of me. She looked as if she were about to speak to me, when all of a sudden—I'm sure I can't tell how—she disappeared. I looked round about me, and called her, but there was no one.
"Then I began to be alarmed, thinking something must have happened to Mistress Claribel, and that I had seen her ghost. I could not let the day pass by without dropping in to call to see if she were all right."
"You must be mistaken, John," said I. "I assure you that Claribel has not left the house all day. She has felt rather unwell."
"Not left the house!" exclaimed Archer. "Why I saw her quite plain this morning."
"You must have been dreaming," said my father.
But I noticed that he gave a glance of peculiar meaning at my friend and self. I knew what was passing in his mind. I, too, shared the same apprehensions. John Archer must have re-encountered Claribel's second self, her much dreaded double. I then recalled the words of Claribel that morning.
"I have seen him. Oh, why did you disturb me?"
My poor friend, I observed, was dreadfully confused as my father's eye rested on her. The colour mounted to her cheeks, then vanished again, leaving her deadly pale, and she seemed desirous to escape notice. Her restlessness became extreme when John began persisting that he had not been dreaming, that he could vouch for what he had seen, etc., etc.
"You should get yourself bled, Master Archer," said my father; "you can't be well."
"I assure you I am in the very best of health," persisted John.