They made up their minds to ask Dr. Hunter about it, and went on with their investigation of the rooms, until both felt that they knew every door and passage in the place.
Blanche was of the opinion that it would be of no use going to look for the ghost until after midnight. The time passed very slowly after they went to bed. They talked in whispers, Blanche telling all the ghost stories she had ever heard, which came chiefly from servants and from her young cousins in London.
"But mother says," she repeated several times, as if to reassure both herself and Marjory, "that there is nothing more to do us harm at night than there is in the daytime; that everything belongs to God, and so we are just as safe in the dark as in the light. But I don't feel the same at night as I do in the daylight; do you?"
"Well, I'm not afraid of the dark," said Marjory, and this was quite true. She was fearless with regard to all natural things; storms, gales, all Nature's moods she could meet without flinching. Animals of all kinds had no terrors for her; neither had the dark—that land of blackness peopled with horrors for so many children. It was only in her dealings with her fellows that fear entered, and with her uncle especially.
They listened to the church clock at Heathermuir chiming the hours and half-hours. They watched the moon rising, glorious in its fullness, till it flooded their room with light. At last the clock boomed out its twelve echoing strokes. The time had come!
Each put on a dressing-gown and slippers, and then they started upon their enterprise. Marjory went in front, carrying a lighted candle. Very gently she opened the bedroom door and stood listening. There was not a sound to be heard. Silky looked questioningly at his mistress, as if wondering what her business could be at this time of night, and why she was thus disturbing his slumbers. Marjory beckoned to Blanche, and as she came out of the room, pushed the dog in, whispering, "Good dog, Silky. Be quiet and keep watch till we come back." Then she cautiously shut the door.
They crept along the corridor on tiptoe, every creak of the boards as they went causing their hearts to beat quickly. They had to pass Dr. Hunter's bedroom, and Marjory fancied that she could hear some movement within. Full of apprehension, she hurried on, Blanche following close at her heels.
Once in the old part of the house, they could breathe more freely, feeling safe from discovery by any of the other inmates.
The deserted hall looked shadowy and mysterious as they passed through it, the pale moonlight casting weird shapes across its walls. Blanche caught Marjory's sleeve. "Look!" she whispered, pointing to a window where something like an arm and hand, with fingers outstretched, was waving up and down.
"It's only the branch of a tree," Marjory whispered back.