"Do you mean the scare?"
"I mean the ghost, sir. Poor master's spirit."
I turned to look at his face, plainly enough to be discerned in the dimness of the foggy night. It was no less grave than his words had been.
"The figure does not appear every night, sir; only occasionally," he resumed; "and always in the same place—in the corner by the wardrobe in Mrs. Brightman's bedroom. It stands there in its grave-clothes."
What with the dark trees about us, the weird evening, and Perry's shrinking tones, I slightly shivered, for all my unbelief.
"But, Perry, it is impossible, you know. There must be delusion somewhere. Mrs. Brightman's nerves have been unstrung by her husband's death."
"Hatch has seen it twice, Mr. Strange," he rejoined. "Nobody can suspect Hatch of having nerves. The last time was on Sunday night. It stood in its shroud, gazing at them—her and the mistress—with a mournful face. Master's very own face, sir, Hatch says, just as it used to be in life; only white and ghastly."
It was a ghastly subject, and the words haunted me all the way back to town. Once or twice I could have declared that I saw Mr. Brightman's face, pale and wan, gazing at me through the fog. Certainly Hatch had neither nerves nor fancies; no living woman within my circle of acquaintance possessed less. What did it all mean? Where could the mystery lie?
Stirring the fire into a blaze when I got into my room, I sat before it, and tried to think out the problem. But the more I tried, the more effectually it seemed to elude me.
With the whir-r-r that it always made, the clock on the mantelpiece began to strike ten. I started. At the same moment, the door opened slowly and noiselessly, and Leah glided in. Mysteriously, if I may so express it: my chamber candlestick carried in one hand, her shoes in the other. She was barefooted; and, unless I strangely mistook, her face was as ghastly as the one Perry had been speaking of that night.