"Could he have been deceived by his imagination?"
"I think not. When a cool, collected man, like my brother Isaac, dispassionately asserts such a thing, in addition to the terrified assertions of others, I at least believe that there must be some dreadful mystery abroad, supernatural or otherwise."
"A mystery?"
"Yes, a mystery. Putting aside all questions of the figure, how is it that the coat can appear in the churchyard, when it remains all the while in safe custody at the Mermaid?"
Anna sat down, overwhelmed with the confusion of ideas that presented themselves. The chief one that struggled upwards was--how should she ever have courage to pass the churchyard that night?
"Mary Anne! why did he not speak to it?"
"Because some people came up at the time, and prevented it. When he looked again the figure was gone."
Precisely so. All this, just as Mary Anne described it, had happened to Isaac Thornycroft on the previous night. Robert Hunter, the hat drawn low on his pale face, the unmistakeable coat buttoned round him, had stood there in the churchyard, looking just as he had looked in life. To say that Isaac was not staggered would be wrong--he was--but he recovered himself almost instantly, and was about to call out to the figure, when Mr. Kyne came past with young Connaught, and stopped him. Isaac and his family had to guard against certain discoveries yet; and in the presence of the superintendent of the coastguard, whose suspicions were already too rife, he did not choose to proceed to investigation.
Silence supervened. The young ladies sat on over the fire, each occupied with her sad and secret thoughts. The time-piece struck half-past eight.
"What can have become of Sarah?" exclaimed Anna. "Mrs. Copp was not well, and my Aunt Amy said she should send for me early."