The gatekeeper reappeared, and stood offering them each a rose.
“This gentleman,” replied Ancram, “will know all about the ghost. He probably makes his living out of Warren Hastings, in the tourist season. Without doubt, he says, there is a bhut, a very terrible bhut, which lives in the room directly over our heads and wears iron boots. Shall we go and look for it?”
Half way up the stairs Ancram turned and saw the gatekeeper following them. “You have leave to go,” he said in Hindustani.
At the top he turned again, and found the man still salaaming at their heels. “Jao!” he shouted, with a threatening movement, and the native fled.
“It is preposterous,” he said apologetically to Mrs. Church, “that one should be dogged everywhere by these people.”
They explored the echoing rooms, and looked down the well of the ruined staircase, and decided that no ghost with the shadow of a title to the property could let such desirable premises go unhaunted. They were in absurdly good spirits. They had not been alone together for a fortnight. The sky was all red in the west as they stepped out upon the wide flat roof, and the warm light that was left seemed to hang in mid-air. The spires and domes of Calcutta lay under a sulphur-coloured haze, and the palms on the horizon stood in filmy clouds. The beautiful tropical day was going out.
“We must go in ten minutes,” said Judith, sitting down on the low mossy parapet.
“Back into the world.” He reflected hastily and decided. Up to this time Rhoda Daye had been a conventionality between them. He had a sudden desire to make her the subject of a confidence—to explain, perhaps to discuss, anyhow to explain.
“Tell me, my friend,” he said, making a pattern on the lichen of the roof with his stick, “what do you think of my engagement?”
She looked up startled. It was as if the question had sprung at her. She too felt the need of a temporary occupation, and fell upon her rose.