"But the thing is incredible," persisted Harriet. "Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that it is Mr. Chandos's ghost that walks, what does it come for, Lizzy Dene?"
"I never heard that ghosts stooped to explain their motives. How should we know why it comes?"
"And I never heard yet that ghosts of live people came at all," continued Harriet, in recrimination. "And I don't think anybody else ever did."
"But you know that's only your ignorance, Harriet. Certain people are born into the world with their own fetches or wraiths, which appear sometimes with them, sometimes at a distance, and Mr. Chandos must be one. I knew a lady's-maid of that kind. While she was with her mistress in Scotland, her fetch used to walk about in England, startling acquaintances into fits. Some people call 'em doubles."
"But what's the use of them?" reiterated Harriet; "what do they do? That's what I want to know."
"Harriet, don't you be profane, and set up your back against spirituous things," rebuked Lizzy Dene. "There was a man in our village, over beyond Marden, that never could be brought to reverence such; he mocked at 'em like any heathen, saying he'd fight single-handed the best ten ghosts that ever walked, for ten pound a side, and wished he could get the chance. What was the awful consequences? Why that man, going home one night from the beer-shop, marched right into the canal in mistake for his own house-door, and was drowned."
Emma replenished the stove, took a fresh iron, singed a rag in rubbing it, and continued her work. The woman, folding clothes at the back, turned round to speak.
"How was the notion first taken up—that it was Mr. Chandos's fetch?"
"This way," said Lizzy Dene, who appeared from her longer period of service in the family to know more than the rest. "It was about the time of Sir Thomas's death; just before it, or after it, I forget which now. Mr. Harry—as he was mostly called when he was younger—was ill with that low fever; it was said something had worried him and brought the sickness on. My lady, by token, was poorly at the same time, and kept her rooms; and, now that I remember, Sir Thomas was dead, for she wore her widow's caps. At the very time Mr. Harry was in his bed, this figure, his very self, was seen at night in the grounds. That was the first of it."
"If there's one thing more deceptive than another, it's night-light," meekly observed the woman.