"I am glad you have told no one else," he said, when we had related the whole as circumstantially as possible. "You see mother is not very strong yet, and it would be a pity to bother father, just when he's taken this place and settled it all. And for goodness' sake, don't let a breath of it get about among the servants; there'd be the—something to pay, if you did."
"I won't tell anybody," said Dormy.
"Nor shall I," I added. "Sophy is far too excitable, and if she knew, she would certainly tell Nannie." Nannie is our old nurse.
"If we tell any one," Philip went on, "that means," with a rather irritating smile of self-confidence, "if by any possibility I do not succeed in making an end of your ghost and we want another opinion about it, the person to tell would be Miss Larpent."
"Yes," I said, "I think so, too."
I would not risk irritating him by saying how convinced I was that conviction awaited him as surely it had come to myself, and I knew that Miss Larpent, though far from credulous, was equally far from stupid scepticism concerning the mysteries "not dreamt of" in ordinary "philosophy".
"What do you mean to do?" I went on. "You have a theory, I see. Won't you tell me what it is?"
"I have two," said Phil, rolling up a cigarette as he spoke. "It is either some queer optical illusion, partly the effect of some odd reflection outside—or it is a clever trick."
"A trick!" I exclaimed; "what possible motive could there be for a trick?"
Phil shook his head.