“This was Harry’s room; he liked it because it had the best view of the river,” said Mrs. Scott, as we paused before a chamber on the second floor.
We both hesitated; her apron was at her eyes, and my own throat swelled suddenly: reverently I opened the door, and stepped within, followed by the housekeeper. As I raised the window, and flung back the shutter, she gave a scream. I was really startled. Turning quickly, I saw her with her hands thrown up, an expression of terror upon her face.
“I told you the house was haunted,” she murmured, retreating backward toward the door.
“What do you see?” I asked, glancing about for the cause of her alarm.
“This room,” she gasped—“it was his—and he comes here still. I know it!”
“What makes you think so? Has it been disturbed? If it has, rest assured it has been by the living, not the dead.”
“I wish I thought so,” she said, solemnly. “It can not be. No other part of the house is in the least disturbed. No one has had admission to it—it is impossible; not a crack, not a cranny, by which any thing but a spirit could have got in. Harry’s been here, Mr. Redfield; you can’t convince me different.”
“And if he has,” I said, calmly, for I saw that she was much agitated, “are you any more afraid of him now than you were when he was in the body? You loved him then; think you he will harm you now? Rather you ought to be glad, since you believe in ghosts, that it is a good spirit which haunts these premises—the innocent spirit of the murdered, not the guilty one of the murderer.”
“I know it,” she said. “I’m not afraid—I don’t think I could be really afraid of Henry’s ghost, even if I should see it; but it’s so—awful, isn’t it?”
“Not to me, at all. If such things were permitted, I should like to meet this spiritual visitant, and ask him the one question—if, indeed, he could answer it. I should like to have him point out the guilty. If his hand could reach out from the spiritual world, and stretch a blasting finger toward his murderer, that would be awful to the accursed one, but it would be welcome to me. But what makes you think Henry has been here?”