"No, no," he said eagerly, "no one has put anything of the kind into my head—no one. It is my own senses that have seen—felt it—or else, if it is fancy, I must be going out of my mind, Leila—I do believe there is a ghost here in the play-room."
I sat silent, an awful dread creeping over me, which, as he went on, grew worse and worse. Had the thing—the Finster shadow—attached itself to us—I had read of such cases—had it journeyed with us to this peaceful, healthful house? The remembrance of the cold thrill experienced by Miss Larpent and myself flashed back upon me. And Nat went on.
Yes, the cold was the first thing he had been startled by, followed, just as in the gallery of our old castle, by the consciousness of the terrible shadow-like presence, gradually taking form in the moonlight. For there had been moonlight the last night or two, and Nat, in his skating ardour, had amused himself alone in the play-room after Dormy had gone to bed.
"The night before last was the worst," he said. "It stopped raining, you remember, Leila, and the moon was very bright—I noticed how it glistened on the wet leaves outside. It was by the moonlight I saw the—the shadow. I wouldn't have thought of skating in the evening but for the light, for we've never had a lamp in there. It came round the walls, Leila, and then it seemed to stop and fumble away in one corner—at the end where there is a bench, you know."
Indeed I did know; it was where our governess and I had been sitting.
"I got so awfully frightened," said Nat honestly, "that I ran off. Then yesterday I was ashamed of myself, and went back there in the evening with a candle. But I saw nothing: the moon did not come out. Only—I felt the cold again. I believe it was there—though I could not see it. Leila, what can it be? If only I could make you understand! It is so much worse than it sounds to tell."
I said what I could to soothe him. I spoke of odd shadows thrown by the trees outside swaying in the wind, for the weather was still stormy. I repeated the time-worn argument about optical illusions, etc., etc., and in the end he gave in a little. It might have been his fancy. And he promised me most faithfully to breathe no hint—not the very faintest—of the fright he had had, to Sophy or Dormy, or any one.
Then I had to tell my father. I really shrank from doing so, but there seemed no alternative. At first, of course, he pooh-poohed it at once by saying Dormy must have been talking to Nat about the Finster business, or if not Dormy, some one—Miss Larpent even! But when all such explanations were entirely set at nought, I must say poor father looked rather blank. I was sorry for him, and sorry for myself—the idea of being followed by this horrible presence was too sickening.
Father took refuge at last in some brain-wave theory—involuntary impressions had been made on Nat by all of us, whose minds were still full of the strange experience. He said he felt sure, and no doubt he tried to think he did, that this theory explained the whole. I felt glad for him to get any satisfaction out of it, and I did my best to take it up too. But it was no use. I felt that Nat's experience had been an "objective" one, as Miss Larpent expressed it—or, as Dormy had said at the first at Finster: "No, no, sister—it's something there—it's nothing to do with me."
And earnestly I longed for the time to come for our return to our own familiar home.