"What voice?" said Anne.
"A voice that called, 'Fatima! Fatima! Fatima!' three times, as plain as ever voice did."
"It didn't speak to me," said the beadle; "it only nodded its head, and wagged its head and beard."
"W—w—was it a bl—ue beard?" said the widow.
"Powder-blue, ma'am, as I've a soul to save!"
Dr. Drench was of course instantly sent for. But what are the medicaments of the apothecary in a case where the grave gives up its dead? Dr. Sly arrived, and he offered ghostly—ah! too ghostly—consolation. He said he believed in them. His own grandmother had appeared to his grandfather several times before he married again. He could not doubt that supernatural agencies were possible, even frequent.
"Suppose he were to appear to me alone," ejaculated the widow, "I should die of fright."
The doctor looked particularly arch. "The best way in these cases, my dear madam," said he, "the best way for unprotected ladies is to get a husband. I never heard of a first husband's ghost appearing to a woman and her second husband in my life. In all history there is no account of one."
"Ah! why should I be afraid of seeing my Bluebeard again?" said the widow; and the doctor retired quite pleased, for the lady was evidently thinking of a second husband.
"The captain would be a better protector for me certainly than Mr. Sly," thought the lady, with a sigh; "but Mr. Sly will certainly kill himself, and will the captain be a match for two ghosts? Sly will kill himself; but ah! the captain won't." And the widow thought with pangs of bitter mortification of Dolly Coddlins. How—how should these distracting circumstances be brought to an end?