"Until when?" he asked, in a low, constrained voice.
"Until this day week."
"And then"--O'Hanlon's eyes dilated--"I saw----"
"In the name of Heaven, what?"
"His ghost."
CHAPTER XIX.
[SEEING NOT BELIEVING.]
For a moment the young man looked at the other in amazement and doubt. But it was impossible to resist for any great length of time the conviction that O'Hanlon had spoken sincerely. O'Hanlon himself looked troubled, scared, affrighted, as though scarcely able, and wholly unwilling, to believe his own words. O'Brien was the first to recover his composure.
"I will not," he said, "question what you say; I will go so far as to assure you I am fully convinced you saw the ghost of that unhappy man. You want me to tell you a story which, as I said, is a long one, and I want you to tell me your story at length. Dine with me at 'The Munster' this evening at seven, and we can chat the matter over."
The reference to the hotel and dinner drew the mind of the lawyer back once more into its ordinary groove. With a shrug of his shoulders and a forced laugh, he said: