“Yes, yes, often; and have laughed at them. But,” after a pause, “is not the solution a greater puzzle than were the ghosts?”
“Verily, dear girl, it is even so. Aye, it is a puzzle; and it must, I fear, remain a puzzle, until we can gain more light than we are likely to receive to-night.”
He would not tell her of the greatest marvel of all to himself. What to think of it he did not know. His mind was in a whirl.
He must have time to consider. He knew his father was dead; for he had sat by his dying bed, and had held his hand while he breathed his last, and had seen the mortal body buried in its mother earth.
So, it could not be his father in the flesh he had seen roaming in that old chapel, with a dark lantern in his hand. As to its being his father’s ghost or spirit, that was to him simply monstrous.
Even admitting that the return of a spirit could be possible, the spirit of his father would have been engaged in no such nocturnal escapade.
Could there be another man—a man amongst the living—with his father’s face? A wonderful likeness, like that, offered the most satisfactory solution of the marvel. But who could it be? If such a man lived, and was familiar with that part of the country, why had he never seen him before?
But—where was the use? Puzzle and conjecture as he would, he could come no nearer to the truth. The only thing to do was to take time; keep his eyes and ears open, and search. And one thing which he meant to search was this very chapel.
Almost before they were aware of it the rain had ceased to fall, and a low murmur of thankfulness fell from Cordelia’s lips as she saw a stream of silvery moonlight on the chapel floor.
Aye, the clouds were rolling away and the bright moon, near its full, looked forth right cheerily from the eastern sky, casting light enough through the three tall windows on that side to illumine the chapel very clearly. At all events, the stone altar was plainly visible, and all the adjacent wall.