“Don’t trouble to have anything brought back for me,” said he.  “I’ll eat a bit of bread and cheese.”  He was not like his assistant; his growing days were over.

Master Cheese went straight up to bed.  He liked to do so as soon as supper was over, lest any summons came, and he should have to go out.  Easy Jan, no matter how tired he might be, would attend himself, sooner than wake up Master Cheese—­a ceremony more easy to attempt than to accomplish.  Fortifying himself with about a pound of sweet cake, which he kept in his box, as dessert to the herrings, and to refresh his dreams, Master Cheese put himself into bed.

Jan meanwhile finished his bread and cheese, and rose.  “I wonder whether I shall get a whole night of it tonight?” said he, stretching himself.  “I didn’t have much bed last night.”

“Have you to go out again, Mr. Jan?”

“No.  I shall look to the books a bit, and then turn in.  Good night, Miss Deborah; good-night, Miss Amilly.”

“Good-night,” they answered.

Amilly drew to the fire.  The chilly rain of the afternoon had caused them to have one lighted.  She put her feet on the fender, feeling the warmth comfortable.  Deborah sent the supper-tray away, and then left the room.  Stealing out of the side door quietly, she tripped across the narrow path of wet gravel, and entered the surgery.  Jan had got an account-book open on the counter, and was leaning over it, a pen in his hand.

“Don’t be frightened, Mr. Jan; it’s only me,” said Deborah, who did not at all times confine herself to the rules of severe grammar.  “I’ll shut the door, if you please, for I want to say a word to yourself alone.”

“Is it more physic that you want?” asked Jan.  “Has the pain in the side come again?”

“It is not about pains or physic,” she answered, drawing nearer to the counter.  “Mr. Jan”—­dropping her voice to a confidential whisper—­“would you be so good as to tell me the truth of this story that is going about?”

Jan paused.  “What story?” he rejoined.

“This ghost story.  They are saying, I understand, that—­that—­they are saying something about Frederick Massingbird.”

“Did Cheese supply you with the information?” cried Jan, imperturbable as ever.

“He did.  But I must beg you not to scold him for it—­as he thought you might do.  It was I who drew the story from him.  He said you cautioned him not to speak of it to me or Amilly.  I quite appreciate your motives, Mr. Jan, and feel that it was very considerate of you.  But now that I have heard it, I want to know particulars from somebody more reliable than Master Cheese.”

“I told Lionel I’d say nothing to any soul in the parish,” said Jan, open and single-minded as though he had been made of glass.  “But he’d not mind my making you an exception—­as you have heard it.  You are Sibylla’s sister.”

“You don’t believe in its being a ghost?”