The stranger looked at her, tried to speak, choked hopelessly, and was just attempting a stammering, “You are really most—complimentary!” when the sound of flying footsteps came from above, and Bridgie rushed headlong down the staircase. Poor Bridgie, what a sight was that which met her eye! In the middle of the hall stood the figure of the tall Englishman, his face all sparkling with fun, his arms hanging slack by his sides, while Esmeralda clasped him in close embrace, reiterating shrilly—
“I’ll hold you tight! I’ll hold you tight!”
“For pity’s sake, Esmeralda, let go of him this minute!” she cried, rushing to the rescue, and laying soothing hands upon her sister’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to be frightened at, dear; it’s just that wicked Pat, who ought to be destroyed for his pains. It’s no ghost, darling. See, now, he’s laughing at you. Ghosts don’t laugh! He’s nothing but a man after all!”
“He’s a thief! He was trying to get the things out of the cabinet. I am holding him until father comes, so that he may give him in charge!” gasped Esmeralda wildly; and Hilliard looked from one sister to the other with eyes dancing with amusement.
“I’m neither ghost nor thief, as Major O’Shaughnessy will testify when he arrives. I’m really exceedingly sorry to have made such an unfortunate impression, but I came on the most innocent errand. I am staying with Mr Trelawney, and your father was kind enough to offer to lend me a mount for to-morrow. We thought of going for a long ride in the morning, so—”
Esmeralda’s hands fell to her sides. The commonplace explanation did more than a hundred protestations, and a remembrance of the Major’s rhapsodies over the handsome young Englishman whom he had met but a week before was still fresh in her mind. She stepped back, but the light in her eyes gleamed more threateningly than before, as with tragic attitude she turned towards the staircase. On the lowest step crouched Pixie, all eyes and gaping mouth; on the third Mademoiselle clasped her hands, and wagged her head from side to side, as if calling someone to witness that she at least was innocent of offence; from between the banisters peered a red, questioning face, audacious, yet vaguely alarmed.
“Patrick O’Shaughnessy,” said Esmeralda in an awful voice, “you shall pay for this evening’s work!” and at that, audacity triumphed, and Pat retorted sharply—
“But not with the racket, me dear, for ye did howl after all. We heard you right up in the schoolroom. You’re not the hero you thought yourself, to mistake an innocent gentleman for a midnight assassin.”
“Pat, be quiet!” interrupted Bridgie sharply, then turned to the stranger with that winsome smile which was her greatest charm. “You’ve been a schoolboy yourself, and know the ways of them. My brother never rests out of mischief, and he dared my sister Joan to walk the round of the Castle in the dark. She was dressed up as you see, and he had seen you down here in your white coat, and thought maybe you would each be startled by the sight of the other.”
“And at first she wouldn’t go at all, and was only laughing at him for his pains, but Pat said Christmas Eve and Hallowe’en were all the same, and that if a girl went alone by herself in the moonlight she would see the spirit of her future h–—” cried Pixie in one breathless sentence. In her opinion Bridgie’s explanation had been singularly inadequate, and she was filled with indignation at the babel of sounds which drowned her conclusion. Bridgie was seized with a paroxysm of coughing, Mademoiselle with admirable promptitude knocked an old metal cup from a bracket, and sent it clanging to the floor, and Pat cried shrilly—