The ghostly one hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder. But the next moment he was gone, having vanished through a side door into the house.
Penny, weak from excitement, clung to the gate. “Mrs. Weems!” she cried. “Did you see him?”
“Yes, you frightened him away when you shouted.”
“But didn’t you notice his face? As he turned toward me, I caught a glimpse of it. Mrs. Weems, the man looked like Dad!”
“Oh, Penny,” the housekeeper murmured, taking her arm, “you can’t be right. How could it be your father?”
“It looked like him.”
“Not to me,” said Mrs. Weems firmly. “Why, if it had been Mr. Parker, he would have answered when you called. He wouldn’t have run away.”
Penny was compelled to acknowledge the logic of the housekeeper’s reasoning. “I guess that’s true,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll admit I didn’t see his face plainly. I wanted it to be Dad so badly I may have imagined the resemblance.”
A light was switched on in an upstairs room of the estate house. However, blinds were lowered, and those on the ground did not obtain another glimpse of the mysterious man who haunted the snowy garden. Finally Mrs. Weems induced Penny to return to the taxi.
Speeding toward Riverview, neither of them had much to say. Penny could not blot from her mind the vision of a startled, bewildered face. Reason told her that Mrs. Weems was right—the man could not be her father. Who then, was he? Why had he refused to talk to her at the gate?