“Is it some of Monty Cranch’s wild blood?” I have asked, and with that question no end of others.
I asked them when her arm had been hurt, and was getting well in those days when she seemed to be in a dream, with her silent thoughts and her frightened face. For hours she would sit in the window at night, looking out into the park, as you know, and daytimes, when you were away, many is the time I have found her on her bed, shaking with her misery and tears.
I asked those questions, too, when one night—a month ago—she came into my bedroom, walking like a ghost in her bare feet.
“Margaret,” she whispered, trembling, “I can’t wake Mr. Estabrook. I haven’t the courage to. I want you to come to the front windows.”
“Yes,” said I. “What is the matter?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” she cried. “Come. Come. He is there again!”
I had crept through the cold hall with her, and we kneeled down together under the ledge. Moonlight was on the street. The shadows of the trees moved back and forth slowly.
“Look! Now! Behind that post over the way!” she said, pinching my arm. “Do you see him?”
“See who?” I gasped. “What is it? I see nothing.”
“He stretched his hands out!” she cried. “He isn’t real! You see nothing?”