“Well, and what did you do next?”
“I simply bolted—and I’m not ashamed to confess it.”
“Oh!” was her ladyship’s sole comment, but to herself she said: “You coward!”
“You won’t catch me going there again after dark.”
“I suppose not after such a startling experience. But tell me this: did the apparition, if such I may term it, project any shadow of itself in the moonlight?”
Luigi opened his eyes. “Upon my word, I don’t know, Lady Pell. I was too confused to notice. But why do you ask?”
“Because I believe it is an understood thing that ghosts have no shadows—what, indeed, are they themselves but shadows? You evidently missed an interesting point there. But why have you chosen to make me your confidant, Lewis?”
“Because after what you said to me the other night when that girl made such a bobbery on the terrace, I thought I would ask your advice before saying a word to anybody else.”
“That was very sensible on your part. My advice is, that you keep your singular experience strictly to yourself. The whole affair is inexplicable, and no good can come of talking about it. Your grandfather would be greatly annoyed were he to discover that any such report had emanated from you.”
Luigi could scarcely credit his good fortune. That he should not merely be done with Latin declensions and those hateful riding-lessons, but be at liberty to ramble about the Continent for the ensuing month, visiting places he had never seen before, seemed almost too delightful to be true. He could not help saying to himself with a chuckle: “Perhaps if I hadn’t drunk Miss J.’s health quite so often the other night, this bit of luck would never have happened to me.” It was a relief to him on another account to get away from Mapleford for a time. It would effectually separate him from the aforesaid Miss J., who would be sure to hear of his departure. He trusted that by the time he should return she would have forgotten all about that ridiculous question he had put to her on a certain occasion, her answer to which had quite escaped his memory.