The assertion had its effect. Nurse Chaffen was not an irreligious woman, though she did indulge in unlimited gossip, and love a glass of beer when she could get it; and she could not believe that a thing so solemnly asserted was a lie. She felt puzzled to death: her eyes were good and had never played her false yet.
"Have ye got a ghost in the house?" she asked at length, edging a little nearer to the ironing board and to Ann Hopley.
"I have never seen or heard of one."
"It's a rare old place this house. Folks said all kinds of queer things about it in Miser Throckton's time."
"He left no ghost in it, that I know of," repeated Ann.
"Well I never! I can't make it out. You might a'most as soon tell me to believe there's no truth in the Bible. He stood atop o' the stairs, looking down at me and the doctor. It was dusk, I grant; a'most dark; but I saw him as plain as plain could be. He had got white teeth and a suit of black on; and he went off into that door that's at the fur end of the passage."
A keen observer might have detected a sleeping terror in Ann Hopley's eyes; but she was habitually of calm manner and she showed perfect calmness now, knowing how much was at stake. A great deal had all along depended upon her ready presence of mind, her easy equanimity in warding off suspicion: it depended more than ever on her at this trying time, and she had her wits at hand.
"Your eyes and the dusk must have misled you, Mrs. Chaffen," she quietly rejoined. "Is it possible--I put it to yourself--that any gentleman could be in this house, and me and Hopley not know it? That night I had run down from my mistress's room, where she was lying off her head with the fever, and the baby asleep in its little bed by the fire, and was making a drop of gruel in the kitchen here, when the ring at the gate came. I had a great mind to send Hopley to open it: I heard him out yonder putting up his tools for the night: but I should have had to go close up to make him understand, for he's as deaf as a post; and his knees would have been a long while making their way through the maze. So I went myself: it seemed less trouble; and I let in you and the doctor. As to any soul's having been in the place, save me and Hopley and the missis and baby, it's a moral impossibility; and if necessary I could swear to it."
"Where do that there end door lead to?" questioned Mrs. Chaffen, only half-convinced and that half against her will.
"It leads to nowhere. It's a sitting-room. Mrs. Grey does not often use it."