of their own shadows. Come, Miss Blake, I see a way out of this
difficulty; you go and take up your abode at River Hall for six months,
and at the end of that time the evil charm will be broken."

"And Helena dead," she observed.

"You need not take Helena with you."

"Nor anybody else, I suppose you mean," she remarked. "Thank you, Mr.
Craven; but though my life is none too happy, I should like to die a
natural death, and God only knows whether those who have been peeping
and spying about the place might not murder me in my bed, if I ever went
to bed in the house; that is--"

"Then, in a word, you do believe the place is haunted."

"I do nothing of the kind," she answered, angrily; "but though I have
courage enough, thank Heaven, I should not like to stay all alone in any
house, and I know there is not a servant in England would stay there
with me, unless she meant to take my life. But I tell you what, William
Craven, there are lots of poor creatures in the world even poorer than
we are--tutors and starved curates, and the like. Get one of them to
stay at the Hall till he finds out where the trick is, and I won't mind
saying he shall have fifty pounds down for his pains; that is, I mean,
of course, when he has discovered the secret of all these strange
lights, and suchlike."

And feeling she had by this proposition struck Mr. Craven under the
fifth rib, Miss Blake rose to depart.