"If you don't open the door at once, I shall break the glass and let myself in that way!"
She assailed the window-pane with a degree of violence which suggested that she meant what she said; then flattened her nose against it in an endeavour to discover who might be within. While she peered, the door was opened, and some one did come in. She started back.
"Who on earth----"
She was going to say. "Who on earth is that?" But when she got so far, she stopped--because she knew. At least in part.
First through the door there came a woman. And, although she could scarcely credit the evidence of her own eyesight, in her she recognised the visitor of the day but one before--the creature who had persisted in calling herself "the ghost's wife." At her heels there was a man, a perfect stranger to Madge. Having recognised the woman, she looked to see in her companion the loafer of the previous afternoon--but this certainly was not he. This was a miserable, insignificant-looking fellow, very much down at heel--and apparently very much down at everything else. The woman, with impudent assurance, came striding straight to the window. The man hung back, exhibiting in his bearing every symptom of marked discomfort.
The female, as brazen-faced as if she was on the right side of the window, stared at Madge. And Madge stared at her--amazed.
So amazed, indeed, that for a moment or two she was at a loss for words. When they came at last, they came in the form of an inquiry.
"What," she asked, "are you doing there?"
The woman waved her hand--in fact, she waved both her hands--as if repelling some noxious insect.
"Go away!" she cried; "go away! This house is mine--mine!"