"And no wonder," said Julia. "Did you ever hear anyone talk as she does? She never knows when to stop."
Amy thought she never had; but it was amusing and pleasant talk; there could be no dismals where Anne was. It was light talk, but still it was pleasant, and made everyone in a good mood, or at least cheerful.
"I shall see you early to-morrow, Miss Neville," said Julia. "I have so much to say to you."
"If you do not come to bed, Mag," said Anne, from the half-opened door, "I declare I will talk in my sleep to vex you."
Amy went with them as far as the baize door which separated this wing of the house from the other rooms, and then bid good-night to her visitors.
As the light from the candle Anne carried vanished, she was surprised at seeing a dim light glimmering through the key-hole of an unoccupied room opposite. It was but momentary, yet while it lasted it threw a long, thin, bright streak of light across the corridor, full against the wall close beside where she stood.
In some surprise, she retraced her steps, and drew aside the window curtain of her room and tried to look out. But there was no moon; it was one of those dark, pitchy nights, with not a star visible, betokening either rain or another fall of snow.
Full of conjecture as to whether her eyes had deceived her or not, and feeling too timid to venture out again, Amy went to bed, and tried to imagine all manner of solutions as to the cause of the light, all of which she in turn rejected as utterly improbable. She had satisfied herself it was not the moon's rays; then what could it be?
She recalled to memory the day Nurse Hopkins showed her over the house. The picture gallery, with its secret stairs leading into some quaint old unused rooms, with their old worn-out hangings and antique furniture; ghostly-looking, and certainly dismal and solitary, in being so far removed from that part of the house now teeming with life and gaiety; yet Nurse apparently had no fear, but walked boldly on, and appeared in no hurry to emerge into the life beyond, as she talked of the former greatness of the Hall. To Amy, however, the feeling of utter loneliness, the dull, dead sound of the opening and shutting of doors, as they passed through, sent a chill to her heart. Even the jingling of the ponderous bunch of keys Nurse carried jarred against her nerves, so that perhaps her own shadow might have startled and alarmed her.
But although Nurse, in a loud tone of voice, seemed never tired of recounting the by-gone grandeur, which had been handed down to her from the sayings of former housekeepers, yet her voice had sunk into a whisper, as in passing by that door, she stopped and said, "No one ever goes in there. It was old Mrs. Linchmore's room," as if the simple fact of its having been old Mrs. Linchmore's room forbade further enquiry, and was in itself sufficient to check all idle curiosity.