She was interrupted for the second time. The strange lady, turning quickly round again, confronted her with a very pale face and a very eager look, and asked, in the most abrupt manner, an utterly irrelevant question:
"Tell me about that ghost story," she said. "Do they say it is the ghost of a man or of a woman?"
"I was speaking of the late Mrs. Treverton," said the housekeeper, in her severest tones of reproof, "and not of the ghost story about the north rooms. You would have known that, if you had done me the favor to listen to what I said."
"I beg your pardon; I beg your pardon a thousand times for seeming inattentive! It struck me just then—or, at least, I wanted to know—"
"If you care to know about any thing so absurd," said Mrs. Pentreath, mollified by the evident sincerity of the apology that had been offered to her, "the ghost, according to the story, is the ghost of a woman."
The strange lady's face grew whiter than ever; and she turned away once more to the open window on the landing.
"How hot it is!" she said, putting her head out into the air.
"Hot, with a northeast wind!" exclaimed Mrs. Pentreath, in amazement.
Here Uncle Joseph came forward with a polite request to know when they were going to look over the rooms. For the last few minutes he had been asking all sorts of questions of Mr. Munder; and, having received no answers which were not of the shortest and most ungracious kind, had given up talking to the steward in despair.
Mrs. Pentreath prepared to lead the way into the breakfast-room, library, and drawing-room. All three communicated with each other, and each room had a second door opening on a long passage, the entrance to which was on the right-hand side of the first-floor landing. Before leading the way into these rooms, the housekeeper touched Sarah on the shoulder to intimate that it was time to be moving on.