ever, for he added:

"I do hope, Miss Trelawny, that you understand that I am
willing--frankly and unequivocally willing--to do anything I can,
within the limits of my power, to relieve your distress. But your
Father had, in all his doings, some purpose of his own which he did not
disclose to me. So far as I can see, there is not a word of his
instructions that he had not thought over fully. Whatever idea he had
in his mind was the idea of a lifetime; he had studied it in every
possible phase, and was prepared to guard it at every point.

"Now I fear I have distressed you, and I am truly sorry for it; for I
see you have much--too much--to bear already. But I have no
alternative. If you want to consult me at any time about anything, I
promise you I will come without a moment's delay, at any hour of the
day or night. There is my private address," he scribbled in his
pocket-book as he spoke, "and under it the address of my club, where I
am generally to be found in the evening." He tore out the paper and
handed it to her. She thanked him. He shook hands with her and with
me and withdrew.

As soon as the hall door was shut on him, Mrs. Grant tapped at the door
and came in. There was such a look of distress in her face that Miss
Trelawny stood up, deadly white, and asked her:

"What is it, Mrs. Grant? What is it? Any new trouble?"

"I grieve to say, miss, that the servants, all but two, have given
notice and want to leave the house today. They have talked the matter
over among themselves; the butler has spoken for the rest. He says as
how they are willing to forego their wages, and even to pay their legal
obligations instead of notice; but that go today they must."

"What reason do they give?"

"None, miss. They say as how they're sorry, but that they've nothing
to say. I asked Jane, the upper housemaid, miss, who is not with the
rest but stops on; and she tells me confidential that they've got some
notion in their silly heads that the house is haunted!"

We ought to have laughed, but we didn't. I could not look in Miss
Trelawny's face and laugh. The pain and horror there showed no sudden
paroxysm of fear; there was a fixed idea of which this was a
confirmation. For myself, it seemed as if my brain had found a voice.
But the voice was not complete; there was some other thought, darker
and deeper, which lay behind it, whose voice had not sounded as yet.

Chapter VI

Suspicions

The first to