He got as far as the gallery, and then stopped, suddenly frozen to the spot. There, pacing slowly to and fro by the light of a half-moon, which streamed in slantwise through the east window, with bowed head and hands clasped in front of him, was the Grey Monk! Trant’s jaw fell, and his eyes seemed to start from their orbits. A moment or two he stared; then he turned and, without a word or a sound, made his way back to his room, shaking in every limb like a huge jelly, and in mortal dread lest a ghostly hand should clutch him from behind.
Next morning he sought an opportunity of unburdening his mind to Sir Gilbert, only to be snapped at and told that he was an old fool for his pains.
“Let me hear of your having whispered a word about this idiotic rubbish, either in the servants’ hall or outside the house, and it will be worse for you,” said the Baronet, in his most minatory tone. “I’m ashamed of you, Trant, at your time of life.”
For all that, Sir Gilbert did not rest till he had told Lady Pell, who in return confided to him his grandson’s adventure in the spinny, as related to her by the latter.
“It is most annoying—most disturbing and annoying,” said the Baronet, “and I don’t at all know what to do in the matter. Perhaps the best thing will be to do nothing, but to keep on ignoring the whole business as I have done from the first. How is it the apparition never troubles me? I only wish it would! It would not escape me, I warrant you, till I had found out something definite about it. Let us hope, however, that we have heard the last of it for a long time to come.”
But it was a hope not destined to be fulfilled.
In the course of the following fortnight two more appearances were reported to the Baronet, both coming from members of his own household. In these cases the figure was avouched to have been encountered outside the house and in two widely separated parts of the grounds.
When, on the morning to which we have now come, Mr. Lewis Clare failed to make his appearance at the breakfast table, Sir Gilbert, in something of a huff, sent a servant to his room with an ironical inquiry whether they might expect to see him downstairs by luncheon time. Presently the man came back with the news that Mr. Clare was not in his room and that his bed did not appear to have been slept in. Thereupon the Baronet’s eyes met those of Lady Pell. “What fresh folly has he been guilty of? What further disgrace is he going to bring upon himself and me?” were the questions they mutely asked. But to the servant he merely nodded and said, “That will do.”
A little later, when her ladyship and Miss Thursby got up from table, he remarked to the former, “I will see you in the course of the morning”; which meant, “As soon as I have any news you shall be told it.” Then to himself he added, “I suppose I must employ Lisle to hunt him up again.”
He lingered over his breakfast this morning in a way very unusual with him, as if hoping against hope that, from minute to minute, his grandson might make his appearance.