Then the steps advanced direct for us. Even the moon had deserted us, and by no straining of our eyes could we detect who the stranger was, even when she (for by the rustling sound we were positive it was a woman) reached the hearth and stood motionless within a foot of us.
Reach out we could not; stir we durst not; all we could do was to wait and listen.
It is strange what, when all other senses fail, the ear will do for one. I at least could tell that this strange intruder was a woman, and that the dress she wore was of silk. Further, I could tell that when she reached the hearth she knelt before the empty fireplace, not for warmth, but as if seeking something. I could hear what seemed a faint irresolute tapping with the knuckles; then just as, once more, the wind fell into a moan without, there came a sudden and fearful noise, which roused us out of our stupor and filled the place with our shrieks.
For a moment we could not say what had happened. Then I understood that, in the tension of looking for the ghost I could not see, my foot had stretched against the butt of one of the guns and upset a stack of some six of
them on to the stone floor, thereby putting an end to all things, the ghost included; for when we recovered from this last fright, and Tim in desperation struck a light, the place was as silent and empty as it was when we entered it.
If it was all an illusion, it was a strange one—strange indeed for a single witness to hear, stranger still for two. Yet illusion it must have been, begotten of my terrors, and the creak of the stairs, and the sighing of the wind, or the excursions of a vagabond rat. I do not pretend to explain it. Nor, for months after, could I be persuaded that the visitor was aught other than the poor distracted lady of Kilgorman. And it was months after that before I could get out of my mind that she had stood beside us and sought for something in the hearth.
As for us that night, I can promise you we were not many minutes longer in Kilgorman when the spell was once broken. Even Tim forgot the guns. With all the speed we could we ran to the stairs and so to my lady’s chamber, against which stood the friendly ladder, down which we slid, and not waiting even to restore it to its place, sped like hunted hares down the avenue and along the steep path, till we came to the harbour in the creek where lay our boat.
Nor was it till we were safely afloat, with sail hoisted and our bows pointing to Fanad, that we drew breath, and dared look back in the dim dawn at the grim walls and chimneys of Kilgorman as they loomed out upon us from among the trees and rocks.