"You saw nothing," he persisted, with some warmth. "I am astonished at you, Miss Hereford: the fancy was the creation of your own brain, and nothing more. Pray, if the ghost was here then, where is it now?"
"I don't know. It disappeared: I think it seemed to go back towards the west wing. It was certainly there."
"You are certainly silly," was his response. "A vast deal more so than I had given you credit for."
"Ah, Mr. Chandos, you cannot reason me out of my eyesight and my senses. Thank you, thank you ever for coming up the stairs just then: I do believe I should have died, or lost my reason."
Picking up the "Heir of Redclyffe," I walked to my room, went in, and shut the door. Mr. Chandos pulled it open again with a sharp pull.
"Forgive me if I have been harsh. Good-night."
"Oh, yes, sir; I know how foolish it must seem to you. Good-night."
"Go to rest in peace and safety, Anne. And be assured that no ill, ghostly or human, shall work you harm while I am at hand to prevent it."
I closed the door and bolted it, a vague idea in my mind that a bolted door is a better safeguard against a ghost than on unbolted one. Mr. Chandos's footsteps died away in the direction of the west wing.
With the morning, a little of the night's impression had vanished, for the sun was shining brilliantly. Ghosts and sunlight don't accord with each other; you cannot make them amalgamate. Ghosts at midnight are ghosts: in the warm and cheery morning sun they are of doubtful identity; or, at any rate, have vanished very far-off, into unknown regions. I dressed myself as usual, in better spirits than might be supposed, and went down. Mr. Chandos was earlier than I, and stood at the window in the oak-parlour. He took my hand and retained it for some moments in silence, I standing side by side with him, and looking from the window as he did.