it."

"But mother, I only want to support you; I want to help you get rid of
people's superstitions and to prove to them that there is no ghost in
Wildenstein," Kurt assured her.

"Yes, yes, if only one did not know how the brothers--"

"No, Apollonie," the rector's widow interrupted her, "you least of all
should support the belief in these apparitions. Everybody knows that you
lived in the castle more than twenty years, and so people think that you
know what is going on. You realize well enough that all the talk has no
foundation whatever."

Mrs. Apollonie lightly shrugged her shoulders, but said no more.

"But, mother, what can the talk come from then, when there is no
foundation for it, as you say?" asked Kurt, who could not let the matter
rest.

"There is no real foundation for the talk," the mother replied, "and no
one of all those who talk has ever seen the apparition with his own eyes.
It is always other people who tell, and those have been told again by
others, that something uncanny has been seen at the castle. The talk
first started from a misfortune which happened years ago, and later on
the matter came up and people thought a similar misfortune had taken
place again. Although this was an absolutely false report, all the old
stories were brought up again and the talk became livelier than ever.
But people who know better should be very emphatic in suppressing it."