all on a sudden a small white face seemed to look
up into mine! Oh, it was 'orrible!" Pegler did not often drop an aitch,
but when she did so forget herself, she did it thoroughly.

"As I went on looking, fascinated-like"--she was speaking very slowly
now--"whatever was down there seemed to melt away. I didn't say nothing
that evening of what had happened to me, but I couldn't keep myself from
thinking of it. Well, then, ma'am, as you know, I came and undressed
you, and I asked you if you'd like the door kept open between our two
rooms. But you said no, ma'am, you'd rather it was shut. So then I went
to bed."

"And you say--you admit, Pegler--that nothing _did_ happen the night
before last?"

Pegler hesitated. "Nothing happened exactly," she said. "But I had the
most awful feeling, ma'am. And yes--well, something did happen! I heard
a kind of rustling in the room. It would leave off for a time, and, then
begin again. I tried to put it down to a mouse or a rat--or something of
that sort."

"That," said Miss Farrow quietly, "was probably what it was, Pegler."

As if she had not heard her lady's remark, the maid went on: "I'd go
off to sleep, and then suddenly, I'd awake and hear this peculiar
rustle, ma'am, like a dress swishing along--an old-fashioned, rich, soft
silk, such as ladies wore in the old days, when I was a child. But that
dress, the dress I heard rustling, ma'am, was a bit older than that."

"What _do_ you mean, Pegler?"

The maid remained silent, her eyes were fixed; it was as if she had
forgotten where she was.

"And what exactly happened last night?"

"Last night," said Pegler, drawing a long breath, "last night, ma'am--I
know you won't believe me--but I saw the spirit!"

Miss Farrow looked up into the woman's face with an anxious, searching
glance.

She felt disturbed and worried. A great deal of her material
comfort--almost, she might have truly said, much of her happiness in
life--depended on Jane Pegler. In a sense Blanche Farrow had but two
close friends in the world--her host, Lionel Varick, the new owner of
Wyndfell Hall; and the plain, spare, elderly woman standing now before
her. She realized with a sharp pang of concern what Pegler's mental
defection would mean to her. It would be dreadful, _dreadful_, if Pegler
began seeing ghosts, and turning hysterical.

"What was the spirit like?" she asked quietly.

And then, all at once, she had to suppress a violent inclination to
burst o