me with extreme friendliness, and we went into the hall, a very large
and lofty apartment, to tea.

Lady Studley was vivacious and lively in the extreme. While she talked,
the hectic spots came out again on her cheeks. My uneasiness about her
increased as I noticed these symptoms. I felt certain that she was not
only consumptive, but in all probability she was even now the victim of
an advanced stage of phthisis. I felt far more anxious about her than
about her husband, who appeared to me at that moment to be nothing more
than a somewhat nervous and hypochondriacal person. This state of things
seemed easy to account for in a scholar and a man of sedentary habits.

I remarked about the age of the house, and my host became interested,
and told me one or two stories of the old inhabitants of the Grange. He
said that to-morrow he would have much pleasure in taking me over
the building.

[Illustration: "'HAVE YOU A GHOST HERE?' I ASKED, WITH A LAUGH."]

"Have you a ghost here?" I asked, with a laugh.

I don't know what prompted me to ask the question. The moment I did so,
Sir Henry turned white to his lips, and Lady Studley held up a warning
finger to me to intimate that I was on dangerous ground. I felt that I
was, and hastened to divert the conversation into safer channels.
Inadvertently I had touched on a sore spot. I scarcely regretted having
done so, as the flash in the baronet's troubled eyes, and the extreme
agitation of his face, showed me plainly that Lady Studley was right
when she spoke of his nerves being in a very irritable condition. Of
course, I did not believe in ghosts, and wondered that a man of Sir