p the road
at Mother Jane, he stopped to tell me some of the idiosyncrasies of that
old woman. A very harmless courtesy, Mr. Knollys."

"Very," he echoed, not without a touch of sarcasm. "I only hope that is
all," he muttered, with a sidelong look back at the house. "Lucetta
hasn't a particle of belief in that man's friendship, or, rather, she
believes he never goes anywhere without a particular intention, and
I do believe she's right, or why should he come spying around here
just at a time when"--he caught himself up with almost a look of
terror--"when--when you are here?" he completed lamely.

"I do not think," I retorted, more angrily than the occasion perhaps
warranted, "that the word spying applies to Mr. Trohm. But if it does,
what has he to gain from a pause at the gate and a word to such a new
acquaintance as I am?"

"I don't know," William persisted suspiciously. "Trohm's a sharp fellow.
If there was anything to see, he would see it without half looking. But
there isn't. You don't know of anything wrong here, do you, which such a
man as that, hand in glove with the police as we know him to be, might
consider himself interested in?"

Astonished both at this blundering committal of himself and at the
certain sort of anxious confidence he showed in me, I hesitated for a
moment, but only for a moment, since, if half my suspicions were true,
this man must not know that my perspicacity was more to be feared than
even Mr. Trohm's was.

"If Mr. Trohm shows an increased interest in this household during the
last two days," said I, with a heroic defiance of ridicule which I hope
Mr. Gryce has duly appreciated, "I beg leave to call your attention to
the fact that on yesterday morning he came to deliver a letter addressed
to me which had inadvertently been left at his house, and that this
morning he called to inquire how I had spent the night, which, in
consideration of the ghosts which are said to haunt this house and the
strange and uncanny apparitions which only three nights ago made the
entrance to this lane hideous to one pair of eyes at least, should not
cause a gentleman's son like yourself any astonishment. It does not seem
odd to me, I assure you."

He laughed. I meant he should, and, losing almost instantly his air of
doubt and suspicion, turned toward the gate from which I had just moved
away, muttering:

"Well, it's a small matter to me anyway. It's only the girls that are
afraid of Mr. Trohm. I am not