His English was excellent, and he spoke with the clipped, careful accent of the foreigner, which Merriton found fascinating.  He had already succumbed to something of the same thing in Antoinette.  He was beginning to enjoy himself very much indeed.

“There was no need for thanks—­none at all....  What is your opinion of the Towers, Miss Brellier?” he asked suddenly, leaning forward toward her, anxious to change the conversation.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“That is hardly a fair question to ask!” she responded, “when I have been in it but a matter of five minutes or more.  But everything to me is enchanting!  The architecture, the furnishings, the very atmosphere—­”

“Brrh!  If you could have been here last night!” He gave a mock shudder and broke it with a laugh.  “Why, a truly haunted house wasn’t a patch on it!  If this place hasn’t got a ghost, well then I’ll eat my hat!  I could fairly hear ’em, dozens and dozens of them, clinking and clanking all over the place.  And if you could see my room!  I sleep in a four-poster as big as a suburban villa, and every now and again the furniture gives a comfy little crack or two, like someone practising with a pistol, just to remind me that my great-great-great-grandmother’s ghost is sitting in the wardrobe and watching over me with true great-etc.-grandmotherly conscientiousness....  I say, do you ride?  There ought to be some rippin’ rides round here, if my memory doesn’t fail me.”

She nodded, and the conversation took a turn that Sir Nigel found more than pleasant, and the time passed most agreeably.

Merriton, only anxious to entertain his guests, suddenly exploded the bomb which shattered that afternoon’s enjoyment for all three of them.

“By the way,” he remarked, “last night, while I was lying awake I saw a lot of funny flames dancing up and down upon the horizon.  Seemed as though they lay in the marshes between your place and mine, Mr. Brellier.  Borkins pulled a long story about ’em with all the usual trimmin’s.  Said they were supernatural and all that.  Ever seen ’em yourself?  I must say they gave me a bit of a turn.  I’m not keen on spirits—­except in bottle form (which by the way is a rotten bad pun, Miss Brellier,) but in India one gets chockful of that sort of thing, and there never seems to be any rational explanation.  It leaves you feeling funny.  What’s your opinion of ’em?  For seen ’em you must have done, as they seem to be the talk of the whole village from what Borkins says.”

Antoinette’s spoon tinkled in the saucer of the tea-cup she was holding and her face went white.  Brellier shifted his eyes.  A sort of tension had settled suddenly over the pleasant room.