"Don't be anxious for me. I am sorry you heard what Amos said. I am very much better than I was the day he was here. Good-night."
It was all dreary again; sunshine had gone out; and I went up to bed at half-past nine. The first thing I did was to kiss the rose before putting it away: my cheeks burn at confessing it as they burnt then. Kissing the senseless rose! And in the very midst of the sweet folly my chamber-door was knocked at, and Mrs. Penn came in.
"How early you have come up! Dull? Ay, I daresay you do find it dull. But I can't stay a moment. I want you to do me a favour, Anne Hereford. When Mrs. Chandos shall be abed and asleep to-night, let me come to your room."
"What for?" I exclaimed, in great surprise.
"I want to watch from your windows. I want to see whether it is a ghost that is said to haunt the walks at nights: or—whether it is anything else. I knew the late Sir Thomas, and should recognise——"
"Hush, Mrs. Penn," I interrupted. Every impulse my mind possessed prompted me to deny the request utterly; to nip it in the bud. "It is what I cannot do. I might get very much frightened myself; but it is not that; it is that I am a visitor in the family, and would not pry into an affair that must no doubt be one of pain and annoyance to them. Don't you perceive that it would be dishonourable? I keep my curtains closed at night, you see; and no persuasion would induce me to allow them to be opened."
"You are a foolish girl," she said, with good humour. "Hill locks up the other rooms at dusk: and if she did not, I should be too great a coward to watch alone in them. A love of the marvellous was born with me; I may say a terror of it; and my early training served to increase this. As a child I was allowed to read ghost stories; my nurse used to tell them in my hearing to her companions; of course it could but bear fruit. I think it perfectly wicked to allow such tales to penetrate to the impressionable imaginations of young children; they never wholly recover it."
"But you cannot seriously believe in ghosts, Mrs. Penn!"
"I should be ashamed to avow that I do believe in them. And yet the subject bears for me both a terror and a charm: nay, a strange fascination."
That she spoke the truth now was evident; though I could not think she always did. I stood waiting for her to go.