“As you are in a way responsible for the old man, perhaps that is your duty,” replied Trenholme, secretly thinking that on such roads and under such skies the volatile youth would not go very far.

A blast of wind entered the house door as Harkness went out of it, scattering Trenholme’s papers, causing his study lamp to flare up suddenly, and almost extinguishing it.

Trenholme went on with his writing, and now a curious thing happened.  About nine o’clock he again heard steps upon his path, and the bell rang.  Thinking it a visitor, he stepped to the door himself, as he often did.  There was no one there but a small boy, bearing a large box on his shoulders.  He asked for Mrs. Martha.  “Have you got a parcel for her?” said Trenholme, thinking his housekeeper had probably retired, as she did not come to the door.  The boy signified that he had, and made his way into the light of the study door.  Trenholme saw now, by the label on the box, that he had come from the largest millinery establishment the place could boast.  It rather surprised him that the lean old woman should have been purchasing new apparel there, but there was nothing to be done but tell the boy to put out the contents of the box and be gone.  Accordingly, upon a large chair the boy laid a white gown of delicate material, and went away.

Trenholme stood contemplating the gown; he even touched it lightly with his hand, so surprised he was.  He soon concluded there was some mistake, and afterwards, when he heard the housekeeper enter the kitchen from the garden door, he was interested enough to get up with alacrity and call to her.  “A gown has come for you, Mrs. Martha,” he cried.  Now, he thought, the mistake would be proved; but she only came in soberly, and took up the gown as if it was an expected thing.  He bade her good-night.  “Good-night,” said she, looking at him.  There was a red spot on each of her thin, withered cheeks.  He heard her footstep mounting her bedroom staircase, but no clue to the mystery of her purchase offered itself to mitigate his surprise.  Had she not been his housekeeper now for six years, and during that time not so much as a trace of any vagary of mind had he observed in her.

About an hour afterwards, when he had gone into the next room to look for some papers, he heard quiet sounds going on in the kitchen, which was just at the rear end of the small hall on which the room doors opened.  A moment more and he surmised that his housekeeper must have again descended for something.  “Are you there, Mrs. Martha?” he called.  There was no answer in words, but hearing the kitchen door open, he looked into the lobby, and there a strange vision flashed on his sight.  His end of the lobby was dark, but in the kitchen doorway, by the light of the candles she held, he saw his elderly housekeeper arrayed in the pure white gown.