"Dormy hasn't said much," Philip replied. "He only told me he had felt the cold once or twice, 'since the moon came again,' he said. But I can see the fear of more is upon him. And this determined me to speak to you. I have to go to London for ten days or so, to see the doctors about my leave, and a few other things. I don't like it for you and Miss Larpent if—if this thing is to return—with no one else in your confidence, especially on Dormy's account. Do you think we must tell father before I go?"
I hesitated. For many reasons I was reluctant to do so. Father would be exaggeratedly sceptical at first, and then, if he were convinced, as I knew he would be, he would go to the other extreme and insist upon leaving Finster, and there would be a regular upset, trying for mother and everybody concerned. And mother liked the place, and was looking so much better!
"After all," I said, "it has not hurt any of us. Miss Larpent got a shake, so did I. But it wasn't as great a shock to us as to you, Phil, to have to believe in a ghost. And we can avoid the gallery while you are away. No, except for Dormy, I would rather keep it to ourselves—after all, we are not going to live here always. Yet it is so nice, it seems such a pity."
It was such an exquisite morning; the air, faintly breathing of the sea, was like elixir; the heights and shadows on the cliffs, thrown out by the darker woods behind, were indeed, as Janet Miles had said, "wonderful".
"Yes," Phil agreed, "it is an awful nuisance. But as for Dormy," he went on, "supposing I get mother to let me take him with me? He'd be as jolly as a sand-boy in London, and my old landlady would look after him like anything if ever I had to be out late. And I'd let my doctor see him—quietly, you know—he might give him a tonic or something."
I heartily approved of the idea. So did mamma when Phil broached it—she, too, had thought her "baby" looking quite pale lately. A London doctor's opinion would be such a satisfaction. So it was settled, and the very next day the two set off. Dormer, in his "old-fashioned," reticent way, in the greatest delight, though only by one remark did the brave little fellow hint at what was, no doubt, the principal cause of his satisfaction.
"The moon will be long past the full when we come back," he said. "And after that there'll only be one other time before we go, won't there, Leila? We've only got this house for three months?"
"Yes," I said, "father only took it for three," though in my heart I knew it was with the option of three more—six in all.
And Miss Larpent and I were left alone, not with the ghost, certainly, but with our fateful knowledge of its unwelcome proximity.
We did not speak of it to each other, but we tacitly avoided the gallery, even, as much as possible, in the daytime. I felt, and so, she has since confessed, did she, that it would be impossible to endure that cold without betraying ourselves.