Heathcote was greatly impressed by this narrative. It cleared up, to his mind, a great deal of the mystery that had been tormenting him the last few days, and accounted for most of the stories and rumours which he had heard. The manner, too, in which Pledge defended himself, taking no undue credit for virtue, and showing such little bitterness towards his traducers, went far to win him over.
“It’s hard lines on you,” he said.
“You see, even a ghost can be wrong sometimes.”
“Yes, he can,” said Heathcote, resolutely.
“I should like to see the letter, if you have it.”
And he did see it, and Heathcote watched the two red spots kindle on his cheeks as he read it and then crushed it up in his hand.
“You don’t want it back, I suppose? You’re not going to frame it?”
“No,” replied the boy, watching the ghost’s letter, rather regretfully, as it flared up and burned to ashes on the grate.
He wished the unpleasant impression caused in his own mind by the affair could come to an end as easily as that scrap of paper did.
Care, however, was not wont to sit heavily at any time on the spirit of George Heathcote, and as Pledge did not again return to the subject, and even Dick, seeing no immediate catastrophe befall his friend, began to suspect the whole affair as an intricate and elaborate practical joke at the expense of two new boys, the matter gradually subsided, and life went on at its usual jog-trot.