Mrs. de Vere Carter was inarticulate.

“That boy ... that boy ... that boy!” was all she could say.

William was hurried away by his family before she could regain speech.

“You’ve disgraced us publicly,” said Mrs. Brown plaintively.  “I thought you must have gone mad.  People will never forget it.  I might have known....”

When pressed for an explanation William would only say: 

“Well, I felt hot.  I felt awful hot, an’ I di’n’t like Cuthbert.”

He appeared to think this sufficient explanation, though he was fully prepared for the want of sympathy displayed by his family.

“Well,” he said firmly, “I’d just like to see you do it, I’d just like to see you be in the head and that ole rug an’ have to say stupid things an’—­an’ see folks you don’t like, an’ I bet you’d do something.”

But he felt that public feeling was against him, and relapsed sadly into silence.  From the darkness in front of them came the sound of Cuthbert’s wailing as Mrs. Clive led her two charges home.

“Poor little Cuthbert!” said Mrs. Brown.  “If I were Joan, I don’t think I’d ever speak to you again.”

“Huh!” ejaculated William scornfully.

But at William’s gate a small figure slipped out from the darkness and two little arms crept round William’s neck.

“Oh, William,” she whispered, “he’s going to-morrow, and I am glad.  Isn’t he a softie?  Oh, William, I do love you, you do such ’citing things!”

CHAPTER VII

THE GHOST

William lay on the floor of the barn, engrossed in a book.  This was a rare thing with William.  His bottle of lemonade lay untouched by his side, and he even forgot the half-eaten apple which reposed in his hand.  His jaws were arrested midway in the act of munching.

“Our hero,” he read, “was awakened about midnight by the sound of the rattling of chains.  Raising himself on his arm he gazed into the darkness.  About a foot from his bed he could discern a tall, white, faintly-gleaming figure and a ghostly arm which beckoned him.”

William’s hair stood on end.

“Crumbs!” he ejaculated.

“Nothing perturbed,” he continued to read, “our hero rose and followed the spectre through the long winding passages of the old castle.  Whenever he hesitated, a white, luminous arm, hung around with ghostly chains, beckoned him on.”

“Gosh!” murmured the enthralled William.  “I’d have bin scared!”

“At the panel in the wall the ghost stopped, and silently the panel slid aside, revealing a flight of stone steps.  Down this went the apparition followed by our intrepid hero.  There was a small stone chamber at the bottom, and into this the rays of moonlight poured, revealing a skeleton in a sitting attitude beside a chest of golden sovereigns.  The gold gleamed in the moonlight.”