t back they go before nightfall, and until morning
there isn't a living soul would cross the path--no, not for a hundred
pounds."

"A howl, you call it?" Mr. Mangan observed.

"That's mostly like a dog that's hurt itself," Middleton explained
equably, "like a dog, that is, with a touch of human in its throat, as
we've all heard in our time, sir. You'll hear it yourself, sir, maybe
to-night or to-morrow night."

"You've heard it then, Middleton?" his master asked.

"Why, surely, sir," the old man replied in surprise. "Most weeks for the
last ten years."

"Haven't you ever got up and gone out to see what it was?"

The old man shook his head.

"But I knew right well what that was, sir," he said, "and I'm not one
for looking on spirits. Spirits there are that walk this world, as we
well know, and the spirit of Roger Unthank walks from between the Black
Wood and those windows, come every week of the year. But I'm not for
looking at him. There's evil comes of that. I turn over in my bed, and I
stop my ears, but I've never yet raised a blind."

"Tell me, Middleton," Dominey asked, "is Lady Dominey terrified at
these--er--visitations?"

"That I can't rightly say, sir. Her ladyship's always sweet and gentle,
with kind words on her lips for every one, but there's the terror there
in her eyes that was lit that night when you staggered into the hall,
Squire, and I've never seen it properly quenched yet, so to speak. She
carries fear with her, but whether it's the fear of seeing you again, or
the fear of Roger Unthank's spirit, I could not tell."

Dominey seemed suddenly to become possessed of a strange desire to
thrust the whole subject away. He dismissed the old man kindly but
a little abruptly, accompanying him to the corridor which led to the
servants' quarters and talking all the time about the pheasants. When he
returned, he found that his guest had emptied his second glass of brandy
and was surreptitiously mopping his forehead.

"That," the latter remarked, "is the class of old retainer who lives too
long. If I were a Dominey of the Middle Ages, I think a stone around his
neck and the deepest well would be the sensible way of dealing with him.
He made me feel positively uncomfortable."

"I noticed it," Dominey remarked, with a faint smile. "I'm not going to
pretend that it was a pleasant conversation myself."

"I've heard some ghost stories," Mangan went on, "but a spook that comes
and howls once a week for te