"Hush, Giles!" responded she, in a tone of unmistakable terror. "I saw a
ghost!"

"Saw a--what?" thundered Giles Roy.

"A ghost!" she repeated. "And it have made me shiver ever since."

Giles Roy knew that his wife was rather prone to flights of fancy. He
was in the habit of administering one sovereign remedy, which he
believed to be an infallible panacea for wives' ailments whenever it was
applied--a hearty good shaking. He gave her a slight instalment as he
turned away.

"Wait till I get ye home," said he significantly. "I'll drive the ghosts
out of ye!"

Mr. Verner had seated himself in his study, with a view of investigating
systematically the circumstances attending the affair, so far as they
were known. At present all seemed involved in a Babel of confusion, even
the open details.

"Those able to tell anything of it shall come before me, one by one," he
observed; "we may get at something then."

The only stranger present was Mr. Bitterworth, an old and intimate
friend of Mr. Verner. He was a man of good property, and resided a
little beyond Verner's Pride. Others--plenty of them--had been eager to
assist in what they called the investigation, but Mr. Verner had
declined. The public investigation would come soon enough, he observed,