was wrong,
I put on my clothes and hurried downstairs into the yard. Also I climbed
over the fence into the yard of No. 13. Here I could not see where the
figure had disappeared to, as the doors and windows at the back of the
house were all locked. I could not conjecture who the woman was--for it
was a woman I saw--who had entered, or why she had done so, or in what
way she had gained admission.

"While I was thus thinking I saw the woman again. She apparently rose
out of the earth, and after closing what appeared to be a trap-door, she
made for the fence. I stopped her before she got there, and found to my
surprise that she was a red-headed servant of Mrs. Bensusan's--a kind of
gypsy, very clever, and--I think--with much evil in her. She was
alarmed at being discovered, and begged me not to tell on her. For my
own sake, I promised not to do so, but made her explain how she got into
the house, and why she entered it. Then she told me an extraordinary
tale.

"For some years, she said, she had been with Mrs. Bensusan, who had
taken her from the gypsies to civilise her, and hating the restraint of
civilised life, she had been in the habit of roaming about at night.
Knowing that the house at the back was unoccupied, this Rhoda--for that
is her name--climbed over the fence and tried to get into it, but found
the doors and windows bolted and barred.

"Then one night she saw a kind of grated window amid the grass, and as
this proved not to be bolted, she pulled it open. Taking a candle with
her, she went on a voyage of discovery, and dropped through this hole
some distance into a disused cellar. Only a cat could have got in
safely, for the height was considerable; and, indeed, Rhoda did not risk
that mode of entrance again, for, finding a ladder in the cellar, which,
I presume, had been used to get at the higher bins of wine, she placed
this against the aperture, and thus was enabled to ascend and descend
without difficulty. Frequently by this means she entered the empty
house, and went from room to room with her candle, singing gypsy songs
as she wandered. So here I had found the ghost of No. 13, although I
don't suppose this impish gypsy girl knew as much. She haunted the
house just to amuse herself, when fat Mrs. Bensusan thought she was
safe in bed.

"I asked Rhoda why she had entered the house on that particular night
when I had caught her. She confessed that she had seen some articles of
silver in Clear's rooms whic