"I'm sure I don't know what to say to you," was his candid avowal. "You are evidently so imbued with your own view of the matter, that any argument to the contrary would be useless."
"What troubles me is this," resumed Jelly, as if she had not heard him. "Why is she unable to rest, poor thing? What's the reason for it?"
"I should say there was no reason," observed Mr. Seeley.
"Should you, sir?"
Jelly spoke significantly, and he looked at her keenly. There was a professional lamp over the door, as there was over Dr. Rane's; and their faces were visible to each other. The significant tone had slipped out in the heat of argument, and Jelly grew cautious again.
"What am I to do, sir?"
"Indeed I cannot tell you, Jelly. There is only one thing to be done, I should say--get rid of the fancy again as quickly as you can."
"You think I did not see it!"
"I think all ghost-stories proceed purely from an excited imagination," said the surgeon.
"You have not lived here very long, sir, but you have been here quite long enough to know that I've not much imagination. I don't remember that, before this happened, I ever felt excited in my whole life. My nature's not that way. The first time I saw her, I had come in, as I say, from Ketler's; and all I was thinking of was Dinah's negligence in not putting out the matches for me. I declare that when I saw her, poor thing, that night, I was as cool as a cucumber. She stood there some time, looking at me with a fixed stare, as it seemed, and I stood in the dark, looking at her. I thought it was herself, Mr. Seeley, and felt glad that she was able to be out of bed. In the morning, when I heard she was dead and shut up in her coffin, I thought she must have been shut in alive. You were the first I asked whether it was true that she was dead," added Jelly, warming with the sudden recollection, "I saw you standing here at the door after Dinah had told me, and I stepped over to you."