"What part did he play?" asked Cecil, crowding his mouth with plums, while he held the remaining cake high above his head to escape Knut's jumping.
"Oh, the important office was his to announce the daybreak and put an end to the ghost's walking. Do ghosts walk nowadays dost thou think, Cecil?"
"Sure."
"I think so too; I have seen them,—in fact, I feel sometimes as if I were one of them."
"Art thou really?" Cecil's eyes were round as saucers.
"Well, never mind that question just now. Perhaps I am—perhaps I am not; do thou drain thy wine, and let us be off outside to build a snow-man in the road."
Nothing loath, the child slipped his hand into the big, muscular one held out to him, and unobserved by the preoccupied group around the fire, they slipped out.
Ralph Ingle turned as they passed him. "I must watch that man," he thought. "He who takes a child by the hand takes the mother by the heart."
"Wait," said Cecil at the door. "I must doff my finery, for who knows when I may need it to receive another tenant?"
"Prudent lad! I will do the same, lest I catch the fever and then thou must needs seek a new tenant. But, Cecil, promise me one thing."