'There it lies, and you may do what you like about it.'
"He would listen to no argument, but dashed out of the room like a madman. But perhaps these details are familiar to you, and God knows they are painful to me to tell."
My father was sitting with staring eyes, and his forgotten pipe reeking in his hand.
"Pray let us hear the end of it, sir," he cried.
"Well, then, I had finished my toilet in an hour or so--for I was less exigeant in those days than now--and I met Sir Lothian Hume at breakfast. His experience had been the same as my own, and he was eager to see Captain Barrington; and to ascertain why he had directed his brother to return the money to us. We were talking the matter over when suddenly I raised my eyes to the corner of the ceiling, and I saw--I saw--"
My uncle had turned quite pale with the vividness of the memory, and he passed his hand over his eyes.
"It was crimson," said he, with a shudder--"crimson with black cracks, and from every crack--but I will give you dreams, sister Mary. Suffice it that we rushed up the stair which led direct to the Captain's room, and there we found him lying with the bone gleaming white through his throat. A hunting-knife lay in the room- -and the knife was Lord Avon's. A lace ruffle was found in the dead man's grasp--and the ruffle was Lord Avon's. Some papers were found charred in the grate--and the papers were Lord Avon's. Oh, my poor friend, in what moment of madness did you come to do such a deed?"
The light had gone out of my uncle's eyes and the extravagance from his manner. His speech was clear and plain, with none of those strange London ways which had so amazed me. Here was a second uncle, a man of heart and a man of brains, and I liked him better than the first.
"And what said Lord Avon?" cried my father.
"He said nothing. He went about like one who walks in his sleep, with horror-stricken eyes. None dared arrest him until there should be due inquiry, but when the coroner's court brought wilful murder against him, the constables came for him in full cry. But they found him fled. There was a rumour that he had been seen in Westminster in the next week, and then that he had escaped for America, but nothing more is known. It will be a bright day for Sir Lothian Hume when they can prove him dead, for he is next of kin, and till then he can touch neither title nor estate."
The telling of this grim story had cast a chill upon all of us. My uncle held out his hands towards the blaze, and I noticed that they were as white as the ruffles which fringed them.
"I know not how things are at Cliffe Royal now," said he, thoughtfully. "It was not a cheery house, even before this shadow fell upon it. A fitter stage was never set forth for such a tragedy. But seventeen years have passed, and perhaps even that horrible ceiling--"
"It still bears the stain," said I.
I know not which of the three was the more astonished, for my mother had not heard of my adventures of the night. They never took their wondering eyes off me as I told my story, and my heart swelled with pride when my uncle said that we had carried ourselves well, and that he did not think that many of our age would have stood it as stoutly.
"But as to this ghost, it must have been the creature of your own minds," said he. "Imagination plays us strange tricks, and though I have as steady a nerve as a man might wish, I cannot answer for what I might see if I were to stand under that blood-stained ceiling at midnight."
"Uncle," said I, "I saw a figure as plainly as I see that fire, and I heard the steps as clearly as I hear the crackle of the fagots. Besides, we could not both be deceived."
"There is truth in that," said be, thoughtfully. "You saw no features, you say?"
"It was too dark."
"But only a figure?"
"The dark outline of one."
"And it retreated up the stairs?"
"Yes."
"And vanished into the wall?"
"Yes."
"What part of the wall?" cried a voice from behind us.
My mother screamed, and down came my father's pipe on to the hearthrug.