They had broken into the old house in the night, in the hope of obtaining a large sum in money, of which the strange old man, little better than a miser, was supposed to be possessed.
Whether they had succeeded in finding it no one ever knew.
The burglars were not caught—the dead lips of the murdered man never told the tale.
From that night Three Oaks had remained deserted, and was fast sinking to ruin and decay.
To whom it belonged few in the neighborhood could have told, but every one had seen the lights—seen them not only once, but again and again. And who but the ghost of old Miser Mansfield himself would think of prowling about the dust-laden rooms of Three Oaks at midnight?
That was precisely what the neighbors wanted to know.
You could not have hired one of them to have approached the old house after dark.
Indeed, some timid persons objected even to passing it on the public road after the shades of night had begun to fall.
Upon the evening of the day following the events of the last few chapters, at a little before midnight, a solitary pedestrian might have been observed picking his way gingerly along the Fort Washington road, opposite the moldering stone wall surrounding Three Oaks, sheltering himself beneath a large alpaca umbrella from the rain which all day long had been falling in torrents, rendering the snow of two days before a slushy mass beneath the feet.
Might have been observed, did we say?