"Oh, I am no judge of course of what a Boyce may do!" said his wife
carelessly. "I leave that to you and the neighbourhood."

Mr. Boyce looked uncomfortable, cooled down, and presently when the
coffee came back asked his wife for a fresh supply in tones from which
all bellicosity had for the time departed. He was a small and singularly
thin man, with blue wandering eyes under the blackest possible eyebrows
and hair. The cheeks were hollow, the complexion as yellow as that of
the typical Anglo-Indian. The special character of the mouth was hidden
by a fine black moustache, but his prevailing expression varied between
irritability and a kind of plaintiveness. The conspicuous blue eyes were
as a rule melancholy; but they could be childishly bright and
self-assertive. There was a general air of breeding about Richard Boyce,
of that air at any rate which our common generalisations connect with
the pride of old family; his dress was careful and correct to the last
detail; and his hands with their long fingers were of an excessive
delicacy, though marred as to beauty by a thinness which nearly amounted
to emaciation.

"The servants say they must leave unless the ghost does, Marcella," said
Mrs. Boyce, suddenly, laying a morsel of toast as she spoke on Lynn's
nose. "Someone from the village of course has been talking--the cook
says she heard _something_ last night, though she will not condescend to
particulars--and in general it seems to me that you and I may be left
before long to do the house work."

"What do they say in the village?" asked Marcella eagerly.

"Oh! they say there was a Boyce two hundred years ago who fled down