Told in a French Garden Part 3

"See here, dear girl," he said, "you and I are a pair of healthy people. We have happened to hear a noise which we can't explain. Be sure that there is rational explanation. You're not afraid?"

"Well, no, I really am not," she declared, "but you cannot deny that it is strange. Did you hear it last night?"

"Go on, now, with your cross-examination," he said. "Let's go to sleep. At any rate the exhibition is over for to-night."

The fourth night they did not speak in the night any more than they had in the daytime. But the next day they had a long conversation, the gist of which was this: That they had bought the place, that except for fifteen minutes at midnight, the place was ideal. They were both level-headed, neither believed in anything super-natural. Were they to be driven out of such a place by so harmless a thing as an unexplained noise? They could get used to it. After a bit it would no more wake them up,--such was the force of habit--than the ticking of the clock. To all this they both agreed, and the matter was dropped.

For ten days they did not mention it, but in all those ten days a sort of crescendo of emotion was going on in her. At first she began to think of it as soon as bed-time approached; then she felt it intruding on her thoughts at the dinner table; then she was unable to sleep for an hour or two after the fifteen minutes had pa.s.sed, and, finally, one night, she fled into his room to find him wide awake, just before dawn, and to confess that the shadow of midnight was stretched before and after until it was almost a black circle round the twenty-four hours.

She knew it was absurd. She had no intention of being driven out of such a lovely place--BUT--

"See here, dear," he said. "Let's break our rule. We neither of us want company, but let's, at least, have a big week ender, and perhaps we can prove to ourselves that our nerves are wrong. One thing is sure, if you are going to get pale over it, I'll burn the blooming house down before we'll live in it."

"But you mind it yourself?"

"Not a bit!"

"But you are awake."

"Of course I am, because I know that you are."

"Do you mean to say that if I slept you wouldn't notice it?"

"On my honor--I should not."

"You are a comfort," she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I shall go right to sleep." And off she went, and did go to sleep.

All the same, in the morning, he insisted on the house-party.

"Let me see our list," he said. "Let us have no students of occult; no men who dabble in laboratory spiritualism; just nice, live, healthy people who never heard of such things--if possible. You can find them."

"You see, dear," she explained, "it would not trouble me if I heard it and you did not--but--"

"Oh, fudge!" he laughed. "Just now I should be sure to hear anything you did, I suppose."

"You old darling," she replied, "then I don't care for it a bit."

"All the same we'll have the house-party."

So the following Sat.u.r.day every room in the house was occupied.

At midnight they were all gathered in the long drawing room opening on the colonnade, and, when the hour sounded, some one was singing. The host and hostess heard the running horses, as usual, and they were conscious that one or two people turned a listening ear, but evidently no one saw anything strange in it, and no comment was made. It was after one when they all went up to their rooms, so that evening pa.s.sed off all right.

But on Sunday night two of the younger guests had gone to sit on the front terrace, and the older people were walking, in the moonlight, in the garden at the back. The sweet little girl, who was having her hand held, got up properly when she heard the carriage coming, and went to the edge of the terrace to see who was arriving at midnight. She had a fit of nerves as the invisible vehicle and its running horses seemed about to ride over her. She ran in, trembling with fear, to tell the tale, and of course every one laughed at her, and the matter would have been dropped, if it had not happened that, just at that moment a very pale gentleman came stumbling out of the house with the statement that he wanted a conveyance "to take him back to town," that "he refused to sleep in a haunted house," that he "had encountered an invisible person running along the corridor to his room," in fact the footsteps had as he put it "pa.s.sed right through him."

The host broke into laughter, but he took the bull by the horns--the facts, as he knew them, were safer than the tales which he knew would run over the city if he attempted to deny things.

"See here, my good people," he said, "there is a little mystery here that we can't explain. The truth is, there _is_ a story about this house. It used to belong to the president of a well-known railroad.

That was twenty-five years ago. They say that one night, when he was driving from a place he had up country, his team was run into at a railway crossing five miles from here--one of those grade crossings that never ought to have been--and he was killed and his horses came home at midnight. 'They say' that the people who lived here after that declared that the horses have come home every midnight since. Now, there's the story. They don't do any harm. It only takes them a few minutes. They don't even trample the driveway, so why not?"

"All the same, I want to go back to town," said the frightened guest.

"I would stay the night, if I were you," said the host. "They won't come again until to-morrow."

All the same, when morning came, every one skipped, and as the last of them drove away, the Woman put her hand through the Man's arm, and smiled as she said: "It's all over. I don't mind a bit. When I heard you saying last night, 'They don't even trample the driveway, so why not?' I said to myself, 'Why not?' indeed."

"Good girl," he replied. "I'll bet my top hat you grow to be proud of them."

I don't know that they ever did, but I do know that they still live there. I went to school with the son, and whenever any one bragged, he used to say, "Well, we've _always_ had a ghost. You ain't got that!"

The Youngster threw his lighted cigarette into the air, ran under it, caught it between his lips, and made a bow, as the Doctor broke into a roar of laughter.

"I know that old house," he said. "Jamaica Pond. But see here, Youngster, your idea of ghosts is terribly illogical. It was the _man_ who was killed, not the _horses_. The wrong part of the team walked."

"You _are_ particular," replied the Youngster. "The man did not come back, and the horses did. I can't split hairs when it's a ghost story.

I feel afraid that I have missed my vocation, and that flights in the imagination are more in my line than flights in the air. I don't know what you think. _I_ think it's a mighty good story. I say, Journalist, do you think I could sell that story? I've never earned a dollar in my life."

"Well," laughed the Journalist, "a dollar is just about what you would get for it."

"If I had been doing that story," said the Critic, "I should have found a logical explanation for it."

"Of course you would," said the Youngster. "I know one of a haunted house on St. James Street which had an explanation."

But the Doctor cut him short with: "Come now, you've done your stunt.

No more stories to-night. Off to bed. You and I are going to take a run to Paris to-morrow."

"What for?"

"Tell you to-morrow."

As every one began to move toward the house, the Violinist remarked, "I was thinking of running up to Paris myself to-morrow. Any one else want to go with me?" The Journalist said that he did, and the party broke up. As they strolled toward the house the Lawyer was heard asking the Youngster, "What were the steps in the corridor?"

"Well," replied the Youngster, "I suppose on the night that the team came home there must have been great excitement in the house--every one running to and fro and--"

But the Journalist's shout of laughter stopped him.

The Youngster eyed him with shocked surprise.

"By Jupiter!" cried the Journalist. "That is the darnedest ghost story I ever heard. Everything and everybody walked but the dead man--even the carriage."

"That isn't _my_ fault," said the Youngster, indignantly.

II

THE TRAINED NURSE'S STORY