t, I'd told her--Miss Norris I mean--not
to be a silly ass. Knowing Mark. Mrs. Calladine wasn't there--Betty
wouldn't let her be. As for the Major, I don't believe anything would
frighten him."

"Where did the ghost appear?"

"Down by the bowling-green. That's supposed to be its haunt, you know.
We were all down there in the moonlight, pretending to wait for it. Do
you know the bowling-green?"

"No."

"I'll show it to you after dinner."

"I wish you would.... Was Mark very angry afterwards?"

"Oh, Lord, yes. Sulked for a whole day. Well, he's just like that."

"Was he angry with all of you?"

"Oh, yes sulky, you know."

"This morning?"

"Oh, no. He got over it he generally does. He's just like a child.
That's really it, Tony; he's like a child in some ways. As a matter of
fact, he was unusually bucked with himself this morning. And yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Rather. We all said we'd never seen him in such form."

"Is he generally in form?"

"He's quite good company, you know, if you take him the right way.
He's rather vain and childish well, like I've been telling you and
self-important; but quite amusing in his way, and--" Bill broke off
suddenly. "I say, you know, it really is the limit, talking about your
host like this."

"Don't think of him as your host. Think of him as a suspected murderer
with a warrant out against him."

"Oh! but that's all rot, you know."

"It's the fact, Bill."

"Yes, but I mean, he didn't do it. He wouldn't murder anybody. It's a
funny thing to say, but well, he's not big enough for it. He's got his
faults, like all of us, but they aren't on that scale."

"One can kill anybody in a childish fit of temper."

Bill grunted assent, but without prejudice to Mark. "All the same," he
said, "I can't believe it. That he would do it deliberately, I mean."

"Suppose it was an accident, as Cayley says, would he lose his head and
run away?"

Bill considered for a moment.

"Yes, I really think he might, you know. He nearly ran away when he saw
the ghost. Of course, that's different, rather."

"Oh, I don't know. In each case it's a question of obeying your instinct
instead of your reason."

They had left the open land and were following a path through the
bordering trees. Two abreast was uncomfortable, so Antony dropped
behind, and further conversation was postponed until they were outside
the boundary fence and in the high road. The road sloped gently down to
the village