n his worst dreams he had never
imagined anything so dark as this. He hurried back to the station at
such a pace that the poor major was reduced to a most asthmatical and
wheezy condition. He trotted along pluckily, however, and as he went
heard the account of Tom's adventures in the morning and of the
departure of Ezra Girdlestone and of his red-bearded companion.
The major's face grew more anxious still when he heard of it. "Pray God
we may not be too late!" he panted.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE CLOUDS GROW DARKER.

When Kate had made a clean breast of all her troubles to the widow
Scully, and had secured that good woman's co-operation, a great weight
seemed to have been lifted from her heart, and she sprang from the shed
a different woman. It would soon be like a dream, all these dreary
weeks in the grim old house. Within a day she was sure that either Tom
or the major would find means of communicating with her. The thought
made her so happy that the colour stole back into her cheeks, and she
sang for very lightness of heart as she made her way back to the Priory.

Mrs. Jorrocks and Rebecca observed the change which had come over her
and marvelled at it. Kate attempted to aid the former in her household
work, but the old crone refused her assistance and repulsed her harshly.
Her maid too answered her curtly when she addressed her, and eyed her in
anything but a friendly manner.

"You don't seem much the worse," she remarked, "for all the wonderful
things you seed in the night."

"Oh, don't speak of it," said Kate. "I am afraid that I have given you
a great fright. I was feeling far from well, and I suppose that I must
have imagined all about that dreadful monk. Yet, at the time, I assure
you that I saw it as plainly as I see you now."

"What's that she says?" asked Mrs. Jorrocks, with her hand to her ear.

"She says that she saw a ghost last night as plain as she sees you now."

"Pack of nonsense!" cried the old woman, rattling the poker in the
grate. "I've been here afore she came--all alone in the house, too--and
I hain't seen nothing of the sort. When she's got nothing else to
grumble about she pretends as she has seen a ghost."

"No, no," the girl said cheerily. "I am not grumbling--indeed I am
not."

"It's like her contrariness to say so," old Mrs. Jorrocks cried
hoarsely. "She's always a-contradictin'."

"You're not in a good temper to-day," Kate remarked, and went off to her
room, go