"No," said Guildea, very drily.
He walked on in silence for a minute. Then he added:
"You thought it would?"
"I certainly thought it might."
"Make me realise that I had a sickly, morbid, rotten imagination—heh? Come now, Murchison, why not say frankly that you packed me off to Westgate to get rid of what you considered an acute form of hysteria?"
The Father was quite unmoved by this attack.
"Come now, Guildea," he retorted, "what did you expect me to think? I saw no indication of hysteria in you. I never have. One would suppose you the last man likely to have such a malady. But which is more natural—for me to believe in your hysteria or in the truth of such a story as you told me?"
"You have me there. No, I mustn't complain. Well, there's no hysteria about me now, at any rate."
"And no stranger in your house, I hope."
Father Murchison spoke the last words with earnest gravity, dropping the half-bantering tone—which they had both assumed.