"It must have got out sooner or later. I never asked any one not to
mention my name when I told the story--"

"I see that you think I took a liberty, and I did. But that's nothing.
That isn't the point. How I do keep beating about the bush! Mrs. Rock
says it was a great deal worse to tell where it happened, for that would
give the place the reputation of being haunted and nobody could ever live
there afterwards, for they couldn't keep servants, even if they didn't
have the creeps themselves, and it would ruin the property."

Hewson had not been able, when she touched upon this point, to elude the
keen eye with which she read his silent thought.

"Is that true?" she demanded.

"Oh, no; oh, no," he began, but he could not frame in plausible terms the
lies he would have uttered. He only succeeded in saying, "Those things
soon blow over."

"Then how," she said, sternly, "does it happen that in every town and
village, almost, there are houses that you can hardly hire anybody to
live in, because people say they are haunted? No, Mr. Hewson, it's very
kind of you, and I appreciate it, but you can't make me believe that it
will ever blow over, about St. Johnswort. Have you heard from Mr. St.
John since?"

"Yes," Hewson was obliged to own.

"And was he very much troubled about it? I should think he was a man that