"My young lady's complemens, sir, and will you excuse her coming down again to-night? she is not equal to seeing nobody. And she says truth, poor child," added Hatch, "for she's quite done over."
"How is your mistress now, Hatch?"
"Oh, she's better, she is. Her nerves have been shook, sir, of late, you know, through the shock of master's unexpected death, and in course she starts at shadders. I won't leave the room again, without the gas a-burning full on."
"What is this tale about Mr. Brightman?"
Hatch and her streamers swung round, and she closed the door before answering. "Miss Annabel never told you that; did she, sir?"
"No; but I have heard a word or two elsewhere. You fancy you saw a ghost?"
"Missis do."
"Oh, I thought you did also."
"I just believe it's a delusion of hers, Mr. Charles, and nothing more," returned Hatch confidently. "If master had been a bad sort of character, or had taken his own life, or anything of that, why, the likelihood is that he might have walked, dying sudden. But being what he was, a Christian gentleman that never missed church, and said his own prayers at home on his knees regular—which I see him a doing of once, when I went bolt into his dressing-room, not beknowing he was in it—why, it is not likely, sir, that he comes again. I don't say as much to them downstairs; better let them be frightened at his ghost than at—at—anybody else's. I wish it was master's ghost, and nothing worse," abruptly concluded Hatch.
"Nothing worse! Some of you would think that bad enough, were it possible for it to appear."