"Does he walk out?"
"Does he? Why, Anne, need you ask the question? Sometimes at dusk, sometimes not until midnight, at any hour just as the whim takes him, out he will go. He has led so restless a life that walking once or twice in the twenty-four hours is essential, or he could not exist. Have you not seen the 'ghost' yourself more than once? Were you not terrified at him in the corridor? Do you forget when I gathered your face to me in the dark walk, while some one passed? I feared that you should see him—should detect that it was a living man, real flesh and blood, not a harmless ghost. Very glad were we when the servants at his first visit, took up the theory of a ghost, in place of any more dangerous notion. From them it spread outside, so that the Chandos ghost has become public rumour and public property."
"Do the servants know that you have this brother?"
"Hickens and some of the elder ones of course know it: know all he was accused of, and why he went into exile; but so many years have elapsed since, that I feel sure the remembrance of him has nearly died out. This visit has been worse for us than any, owing to the proximity of Edwin Barley."
"You think Edwin Barley has been looking out for him?"
"Think! I know it. Something must have arisen to give him the notion that George had returned to England, and was in hiding: though he could not have suspected Chandos, or he would have had it searched. Many things, that we were obliged to say and do, appear to have been very foolish, looking back, and they will seem still more so in after years; but they were done in dread fear. The singular thing is that Mrs. Penn—being here to find out what she could—should not have hit upon the truth before."
"Would Mr. Edwin Barley cause him to be apprehended, do you think?"
"He will apprehend him the very moment that the news shall reach his ears," spoke Mr. Chandos, lifting his hands in agitation. "Living or—dead, I had all but said—at any rate, living or dying, Edwin Barley will seize upon George Heneage. I do not say but he would be justified."
"Oh, Mr. Chandos! Can you not take him somewhere for escape?"
He sadly shook his head. "No. George is past being taken. He has grown worse with rapid quickness. Yesterday I should have said his hours were numbered: to-day he is so much better that I can only think he has entered on a renewed lease of life. At least of some days."