But here Mary—­still pursuing the time-honoured ritual of shutting up—­entered candle in hand, the landing showing brightly lit behind her.

“Dear heart alive!” she exclaimed, “whoever’s that?  You, Miss Damaris?  Alone here in the dark.  You did make me jump.  But there,” she added, repentant of her unceremonious exclamation, “I don’t know what possesses us all to-night.  The least thing seems to make you jump.  Mrs. Cooper’s all of a twitter, and Laura—­silly girl—­is almost as bad.  I suppose it’s the weather being so quiet after yesterday’s gale.  For my own part I always do like a wind about.  It seems company, particularly these long evenings if you’re called on to go round the house by yourself.”

All of which amounted to an admission, as Damaris was not slow to detect.  She was still under the empire of emotion.  The abrupt intrusion affected her.  She, too, needed to carry off the situation.

“Poor Mary,” she said, “you have been frightened—­by what?  Did you hear anything you could not account for when you were down in the library just now?”

The answer came after a pause, as though the speaker were suspicious, slightly unwilling to commit herself.

“No, Miss Damaris, not in Sir Charles’s rooms or in the west wing either.  Whatever unaccountable noises there ever is belong to this old part of the house.”

She set her candlestick on the dressing-table, and went to each window in turn, drawing blinds down and curtains across.  So doing she continued to talk, moving to and fro meanwhile with a firm, light tread.

“Not that I pay much attention to such things myself.  I don’t hold it’s right.  It’s my opinion there’s no sort of nonsense you can’t drive yourself into believing once you let ideas get a root in you.  I’ve seen too much of Mrs. Cooper giving away like that.  The two winters you and Sir Charles was abroad I’d a proper upset with her—­though we are good friends—­more than once.  After sundown she was enough to terrify you out of your life—­wouldn’t go here and wouldn’t go there for fear of she didn’t know what.  Tempting Providence, I call it, and spoke to her quite sharp.  If ever I wanted to go over to spend an hour or two with father and mother in Marychurch, I was bound to ask Mrs. Patch and the children to come in and keep her company.  There’s no sense in putting yourself into such a state.  It makes you a trouble to yourself and everybody else.  And in the end, a thousand to one if anything comes of all the turmoil and fuss—­Mrs. Cooper, to be only fair to her, when she’s in a reasonable humour, allows as much.”