The difficulties of domestication at St. Johnswort had not been
misrepresented by the late proprietor, Hewson found, when he went to take
possession of his estate. He thought it right in engaging servants to say
openly that the place had the reputation of being haunted, and if he had
not thought it right he would have thought it expedient, for he knew that
if he had concealed the fact it would have been discovered to them within
twenty-four hours of their arrival. His declaration was sufficient at
once with most, who recoiled from his service as if he had himself been a
ghost; with one or two sceptics who seemed willing to take the risks
(probably in a guilty consciousness of records that would have kept them
out of other employ) his confession that he had himself seen the spectre
which haunted St. Johnswort, was equally effective. He prevailed at last
against the fact and his own testimony with a Japanese, who could not be
made to understand the objection to the place, and who willingly went
with Hewson as his valet and general house-workman. With the wife of the
gardener coming in to cook for them during the long daylight, he got on
in as much comfort as he could have expected, and by night he suffered no
sort of disturbance from the apparition. He had expected to be annoyed by
believers in spiritualism, and other psychical inquirers, but it sufficed
with them to learn from him that he had come to regard his experience, of
which he had no more question now than ever, as purely subjective.

It seemed to Hewson, in the six weeks' time which he spent at St.
Johnswort, waiting to hear from Rosalie (he had come already to think of
her as Rosalie), that all his life was subjective, it passed so like a
dream. He had some outward cares as to the place; he kept a horse in the
stable, where St. John had kept half a dozen, and he had the gardener
look after that as well as the shrubs and vegetables; but all went on in
a suspensive and provisional sort. In the mean time Rosalie's charm grew