“Did you hear people quarrelling?” he persisted.

“I heard people quarrelling,” she sobbed.  “I did.  But I never saw, no more than the dead, who it was.”

“Whose voices were they?”

“How can I tell, sir?  I wasn’t near enough.  There were two voices, a man’s and a woman’s; but I couldn’t catch a single word, and it did not last long.  I declare, if it were the last word I had to speak, that I heard no more of the quarrel than that, and I wasn’t no nearer to it.”

She really did seem to speak the truth, in spite of her shrinking fear, which was evident to all.  Mr. Verner inquired, with incredulity equally evident, whether that was sufficient to put her into the state of tremor spoken of by young Broom.

Mrs. Roy hung her head.

“I’m timid at quarrels, ’specially if it’s at night,” she faintly answered.

“And was it just the hearing of that quarrel that made you sink down on your knees, and clasp hold of a tree?” continued Mr. Verner.  Upon which Mrs. Roy let fall her head on her hands, and sobbed piteously.

Robin Frost interrupted, sarcasm in his tone—­“There’s a tale going on, outside, that you saw a ghost, and it was that as frighted you,” he said to her.  “Perhaps, sir”—­turning to Mr. Verner—­“you’ll ask her whose ghost it was.”

This appeared to put the finishing touch to Mrs. Roy’s discomfiture.  Nothing could be made of her for a few minutes.  Presently, her agitation somewhat subsided; she lifted her head, and spoke as with a desperate effort.

“It’s true,” she said.  “I’ll make a clean breast of it.  I did see a ghost, and it was that as upset me so.  It wasn’t the quarrelling frighted me:  I thought nothing of that.”

“What do you mean by saying you saw a ghost?” sharply reproved Mr. Verner.

“It was a ghost, sir,” she answered, apparently picking up a little courage, now the subject was fairly entered upon.

A pause ensued.  Mr. Verner may have been at a loss what to say next.  When deliberately assured by any timorous spirit that they have “seen a ghost,” it is waste of time to enter an opposing argument.

“Where did you see the ghost?” he asked.

“I had stopped still, listening to the quarrelling, sir.  But that soon came to an end, for I heard no more, and I went on a few steps, and then I stopped to listen again.  Just as I turned my head towards the grove, where the quarrelling had seemed to be, I saw something a few paces from me that made my flesh creep.  A tall, white thing it looked, whiter than the moonlight.  I knew it could be nothing but a ghost, and my knees sunk down from under me, and I laid hold o’ the trunk o’ the tree.”

“Perhaps it was a death’s head and bones?” cried John Massingbird.

“Maybe, sir,” she answered.  “That, or something worse.  It glided through the trees with its great eyes staring at me; and I felt ready to die.”