THE GREY MONK.
That the Grey Monk was haunting the Friar's Keep that night, and for
a longer period than could be quite agreeable to any chance passer-by,
appeared to be indisputable.
Some of the Grey Sisters were up that evening at the coastguard
station. The wife of one of the men was very ill, her infant being
only three days old: and Sister Rachel had been with her for the day.
At eight o'clock Sister Rachel was relieved by Sister Mona, who would
remain for the night. Sister Ann walked up from the Nunnery with
Sister Mona for company, and would walk back again with Sister Rachel.
It was about half past eight that they left the station to return
home, the Sisters Ann and Rachel. The night was starlight, the air
somewhat frosty. Talking of the poor woman, just quitted, Sister
Rachel saying the fever was getting higher, they approached the
Friar's Keep. They were on the opposite side of the road, and had
nearly reached Chapel Lane when something strange--some kind of
glimmer or faint flash--struck on Sister Rachel's vision, and caused
her to turn her eyes on the upper casements of the Keep. With a spring
and a cry, she seized hold of Sister Ann and clung to her.
"Have you trod upon a stone?" asked practical Sister Ann. But the very
fact of turning to her companion, who was outside, brought the windows
of the Keep before her, and she saw the Grey Monk slowly gliding
along, with his cowl covering his head, and his lamp in his hand. A
shadowy kind of form, suggestive of terrible ideas that don't pertain
to earth.
The blood of the two unfortunate Sisters seemed to turn; they nearly
sank away in evaporation. They clung to each other, arm in arm, hand
to hand, pushing, staggering, pressing onwards, and in a minute, as it
seemed, gained the Grey Nunnery. The door was opened by Sister
Caroline, and they burst into the reception parlour.
The Superior sat there, Mary Ursula; and most of the sisters with her
who were not out on charitable missions. To have stopped the tongues
of the two terrified grey women would have been about as feasible as
to stem a rushing torrent in its overwhelming coarse. They had seen
the apparition of the Grey Monk gliding past the window with their own
eyes; had seen his lamp; had nearly fainted at him altogether.
"Tut, tut, tut!" reproved Sister Mildred, who was better this evening
and down stairs. "I think you must have been deceived by your fears.
I never saw it in my life."
But they only told their tale the more persistently, and Sister
Mildred wavered. In vain Mary Ursula represented to them that there
were no such things as ghosts: that people in believing in them, were
misled by their fears and fancies. To this the two scared women only
reiterated that they saw. They were walking quietly along, talking of
the poor sick wife of the coastguardsman; nothing could have been
further from their thoughts than any fears or fancies, when the figure
suddenly appeared, plainly and unmistakably, before their astonished
eyes.
"Sister Rachel saw it first," urged Sister Ann, anxious to defend
herself against the imputation of having taken alarm unnecessarily, as
though she were a foolish, timid child. "When she called out and
caught hold of my arm, I thought she had trod upon a stone, or twisted
her foot, or something; and, in turning to her there I saw the pale
light in the window, and the figure of the Grey Monk. We stood rooted
to the spot, holding on to one another, just too frightened to move,
our poor eyes staring at the Keep. He glided past that window, and
then past the other, his lighted lamp stretched out in his hand; just
as Sister Lettice once saw him glide a year or so ago--and she knows
it."
Sister Lattice, a simple woman, great in pudding-making, who had stood
listening with round, frightened eyes, murmured her confirmation. One
night, when she was belated, having been to a farm-house where
sickness reigned, she had seen it exactly as the two sisters were
describing it now; and had come home and fainted.
"I was beginning to forget my fright," said Sister Lettice, looking
pleadingly at the two Superiors. "But since the late talk there has
been about that poor Mr. Anthony Castlemaine, I've not dared to go out
of doors at night alone. For the ghost has been seen more frequently
since he disappeared: in fact, as the ladies know, it's said by some
that it is the young man's spirit that comes now, not the Grey
Friar's."
"It was the Grey Friar we saw to-night, let people say what they
will," rejoined Sister Ann.
The talking continued. This was a great event in the monotonous
existence of the Grey ladies: and the two unfortunate Sisters were
shaking still. Mary Ursula withdrew quietly from the room, and put on
the grey cloak and bonnet of the order, and came down again, and let
herself out at the front door.
There was something in all this gossip that disturbed and distressed
Mary Ursula. Anthony's fate and the uncertainty connected with it, was
more often in her mind than she would have cared to tell. Like
Charlotte Guise, she--what with dwelling on it and listening to the
superstitions surmises in Greylands--had grown to think that the
Friar's Keep did contain some mystery not yet unsolved. As to
"ghosts," Mary Castlemaine's sound good sense utterly repudiated all
belief in such. What, then, she naturally asked herself, was this
figure, that took the appearance of the traditional Grey Monk, and
showed itself at the windows of the Keep, lamp in hand? Had it
anything to do with the disappearance of Anthony?
Obeying an irresistible impulse, she was going forth to-night to look
at this said apparition herself--if, indeed, it would appear again and
so allow itself to be looked at. It was perhaps a foolish thing to do;
but she wanted to see with her own unprejudiced eyes what and whom it
was like. With her whole heart she wished the occurrences of that past
February night and the mysteries of the Friar's Keep--did it in truth
contain any--were thrown open to the light of day: it might tend to
clear what was dark--to clear her uncle from the silent suspicions
attaching to him. It was of course his place to institute this search,
but he did not do it. Encasing himself in his pride, his haughty
indifference, Mary supposed he was content to let the matter alone
until it righted itself. But she loved her uncle and was painfully
jealous for his good name.
Turning swiftly out of the gate of the Nunnery, she went up the hill,
passed the Chapel Ruins, crossed the road, and stood still to gaze at
the Friars' Keep. The church clock was striking nine. Taking up her
position under the hedge, in almost the selfsame spot where John Bent
and Anthony Castlemaine had taken theirs that unlucky night, she fixed
her eyes on the windows, and waited. The old building, partly in
ruins, looked grey and grim enough. Sometimes the moon lighted it up;
but there was no moon to night. The stars were bright, the atmosphere
was clear.
The minutes, as they went by, seemed like hours. Mary Ursula had not
much more patience than other people, and it was exhausting itself
rapidly. Not a shadow of a sign was there of the Grey Monk or of any
other appearance. To judge by its silence and its lonely look, one
might have said the Keep had not been entered since the Grey Monk was
alive.
"It is hardly to be supposed it would show itself twice in one night,"
breathed Mary, in a spirit that was somewhat of a mocking one. But in
that she was mistaken: and she went away too soon.
At the end of a quarter of an hour--which had seemed to her like two
quarters--she gave it up. Crossing the road to the chapel gate, she
went in, traversed the ruins to the opposite corner to the Friar's
Keep, and stood looking out to sea. Mary had another vexation on her
mind that night: earlier in the day a report had reached her in a
letter that her recreant lover, William Blake-Gordon, was engaged
again: So soon!--so soon! Whether it was true, she knew not: it could
not, either way, make much difference to the pain that filled her
heart: but the report wrung it cruelly. The other name, mentioned in
connection with his, was Agatha Mountsorrel's; her own close friend of
former days. She knew that she ought not to feel this bitter pain,
this wild jealousy; that, once he was lost to her, she should have put
him out of her mind for good. Ah, it is all very well for the wise to
lay down laws, to say this is wrong and the other is right and you
must act accordingly! human nature is but frail, and the heart must be
true to itself.
Some slight movement caught her attention below. It was low water, and
the strip of beach underneath was free. Mary leaned over to look. But
she could not see: the shelving-out rocks hid the path as she stood.
In the deep silence of the night, she thought she could distinguish
whispering voices, and she waited until their owners should have
passed a little farther on, where a bend inward of the rocks allowed a
view to be obtained.
It brought the greatest vexation of all! A tall fine form came into
sight too tall, too fine, to be any but Harry Castlemaine's. His arm
was around the waist of some young girl; his head was turned to her,
and they were conversing eagerly. She wore a dark cloak, its hood
drawn up over her head: Mary could not see her face, for their backs
were towards her, but she fancied it was Jane Hallet. They passed away
under the Nunnery, as if returning to the village, and were lost to
sight and hearing. Only at quite low water was that narrow strip
passable.
The heaving sea stretched itself out before her eyes; the dead of the
past ages were mouldering away beneath her feet; the canopy of sky,
studded with stars in its vast expanse, lay above her head. But for
all these signs, and the thoughts they involved, Mary Ursula
Castlemaine might in that moment have lost heart and courage. The
by-ways of life seemed very crooked just then; its troubles pregnant
with perplexity and pain. But God was over all. The turbulent waves
were held in check by His Hand; the long-ago dead had been called by
Him; the sky and the stars were but emblems of His power. Yes, He was
over all. From His throne in Heaven He looked down on the world; on its
cares, its trials, its weaknesses, its temptations and sins;
overruling all according to His will. He could set things straight;
He was full of compassion, long-suffering, and mercy. The dark
troubles here would be merged in a bright hereafter: in a place where
there should be no cankering heart-break, where sorrow and suffering
should flee away. A few more years, and----
"Dear me, ma'am! I beg your pardon."
Mary Ursula, buried in her far-off thoughts in the solitary place, was
startled at the address, and turned round with a slight cry. Close at
her elbow stood John Bent; a small basket in his band, covered with a
white cloth.
"I'm sure I frightened you, ma'am!"
"Just for the moment you did," she said, with her sweet smile,
interrupting his farther apologies. "I was standing to take a look at
the sea. How grand it is from this spot!"
John Bent agreed that it was grand, and proceeded to explain his
presence. His wife had dispatched him with some broth and other
trifles that might be acceptable to the sick woman up at the
coastguard station. In passing the chapel ruins on his way thither, he
had caught sight of some one standing at the edge of the cliff, and
turned in at once to see who it was.
"No wonder you did not hear me, ma'am, for I crept up on tiptoe," he
acknowledged. "Since the disappearance of Mr. Anthony Castlemaine,
this place is just as though it haunted me, for it is never out of my
mind. To see somebody standing here in the shade of the corner wall
gave me a turn. I could not imagine who it was, and meant to pounce
upon 'em."
"The place lies on my mind also," said Mary Ursula. "I wish the doings
of that night could be brought to light."
The landlord shook his head, she could not wish it as he wished it.
"I don't think now it ever will be," he said. "At least, I often fear
it will not. There is only one person, as I believe, who could throw
light upon it; and it does not seem to be his pleasure to speak."
She knew that he alluded to her uncle; and she seized on the moment
for speaking a few words that she had long wished to speak to John
Bent. In spite of the opinion he held, and that she knew he held, in
regard to that past night, she respected the man greatly: she
remembered how much her father had respected him.
"I cannot be ignorant, Mr. Bent, of the stigma you would cast on Mr.
Castlemaine: the suspicion, I would rather say, lying in your mind
against him. I believe that nothing can be more unjust: nothing more
inconsistent with the true facts, could they be disclosed."
John Bent was silent. She stood close in the corner, within the shade
cast by the slanting bit of stone wall, the blank side wall of the
Grey Nunnery towering close above her. John was so near as almost to
touch her. The sea was before them, a light twinkling on it here and
there in the distance from some fishing vessel; the grass-grown
square, once the site of the chapel, with its dottings of low
crumbling walls, lay to their left, and beyond it was the Friars'
Keep, its gothic door pushed to as usual. A lonely spot altogether it
was to stand in, in the silence of the spring night.
"Why should you cherish this suspicion?" she asked.
John Bent tilted his hat slightly up on one side, and slowly rubbed
his head. He was a very honest-minded, straightforward man; and though
he might on occasion find it inexpedient to avow the truth, he yet
would not, even by implication, speak an untruth; or tacitly let one
be inferred.
"It is a subject, ma'am, on which my mouth ought to be closed to you."
"Not at all," she answered. "Were I Mr. Castlemaine's wife or daughter
you might urge that. I am his niece, it is true; but I have now in a
manner withdrawn myself from the world, and----But I will leave that
argument and go to another. For my own sake, I wish you to speak
openly with me. These troubles lie on my mind; sometimes I cannot
sleep for thinking of them."
"I am sure I cannot sleep for them," said John.
"And I think that steps should be taken to put the doubts to
flight--if we only knew what steps they could be."
John stooped to lodge the basket on the low top of the
grass-grown cliff, jutting upwards before him. But he did not answer.
"Believe me when I say that no thought of reproach on you for
entertaining these opinions rests on my mind," proceeded Miss
Castlemaine. "I am sure that you conscientiously hold them; that you
cannot divest yourself of them; and----"
"I wish I didn't," interposed John. "I only wish I had no cause to."
"There is no cause," she said in a low tone; "no true one. I am as
sure of it as that I stand here. Even had it been Mr. Castlemaine whom
you saw come in here that night, I feel sure his presence could have
been explained away. But I think you must have been mistaken. You have
no confirmation that it was he: nay, the confirmation lies rather the
other way--that he was not here. Considering all this, I think you
ought not to persist in your opinion, Mr. Bent; or to let the world
believe you persist in it."
"As I have said before, madam, this is a matter that I don't care to
talk to you upon."
"But I wish you to talk to me. I ask you to talk to me. You may see
that I speak to you confidentially--do you so speak to me. There is no
one else I would thus talk with about it, save you."
"Madam, it's just this--not but what I feel the honour you do me, and
thank you for it; and goodness knows what honour I hold and have
always held you in, Miss Castlemaine--But it's this, ma'am: your
opinion lies one way and mine the other: and while I would not insist
to you that Mr. Castlemaine was guilty, I yet can't let myself say
he was not."
"I am as fully persuaded he was not as that those stars are above us,"
she said. But John made no reply.
"Mr. Anthony was made away with, madam. I----"
"No, no," she interrupted with a shiver.
"I don't accuse Mr. Castlemaine of having done it," proceeded John.
"What I say, and hold to, is this, ma'am: that Mr. Castlemaine must
know something of what became of him. But he does not avow it; he
keeps silence: and it is that silence that strengthens the suspicions
against him. I saw him come in here that night just as surely as I see
you here now, Miss Castlemaine. It's true I did not see him so clearly
go into the Friar's Keep; these mouldering walls, sticking up here and
there a foot or two from the earth, dodge one's eyesight: still I saw
the shade of him, like, go in: and in less than a minute my attention
was called off Mr. Castlemaine by Mr. Anthony's own movements. I saw
him go into the Keep: he made for it straight."
"But I say that the person you saw may not have been Mr. Castlemaine,"
she urged again, after having quietly heard him to the end.
"What other man is there in Greylands, ma'am, of the height and
bearing of Mr. Castlemaine--one with the bold, free, upright walk and
the gentleman's dress?" returned the landlord. "Only Mr. Harry: and
Mr. Harry is too young and slender to be mistaken for his father even
in the moonlight. Mr. Harry happened to be away that night at
Newerton."
"I think you are cruelly, persistently obstinate. Forgive me, Mr.
Bent; I do not wish or intend to hurt your feelings," she added in a
gentle, even kind tone. "It seems to me that you must have some animus
against Mr. Castlemaine."
"The poor young gentleman was living under my roof, madam. I went
forth with him that night, halted with him opposite this very gate,
and watched him in. It has sat on my mind always since that I am in a
manner accountable for him--that it lies with me to find out what
became of him."
"I can understand the feeling and appreciate it," she answered
quickly. "In itself it is a good and right feeling; but I think that
it's very intensity tends to mislead you, and to cause this very
animosity against Mr. Castlemaine. The person you saw come in here may
have been a stranger: you have had no confirmation of any kind that it
was Mr. Castlemaine: and the eyesight at night is so deceptive."
"Yes I have," said John, dropping his voice to a whisper, and speaking
with evident reluctance. "I have had confirmation. Madam, you make me
speak against my better will."
"You allude to Anthony," she rejoined somewhat impatiently. "You have
said, I know, that he likewise thought it was his uncle--as indeed
seems proved by the fact of his following him in. But, it may be that
he was only led to think so by some exclamation of yours; that he did
not see it with his own eyes. He is not here to prove it, one way or
the other. In thus pressing my view of the case, I am only anxious
that the fair truth should be established," she resumed after an
instant's pause, as though she would explain her own persistency. "I
am not wishing to mislead or bias you."
"We both saw him, ma'am, we both saw plainly that it was Mr.
Castlemaine; but I did not allude to Mr. Anthony," spoke John, in the
same subdued tone. "It has been confirmed by another."
"By whom?" she asked, drawing her cloak together with a sharp movement
as though she were cold. "Do not hesitate; tell me all. I have said
that I regard this as a confidential interview."
And perhaps John Bent, after what had passed, could find no plea of
refusal. He was a very persuadable man when either his good sense or
his good feeling was appealed to. As Mrs. Bent was wont to tell him,
he had a soft place in his heart.
"Up to last night that ever was, ma'am, I had no idea that Mr.
Castlemaine had been seen by any but us. But I find he was. I'll tell
you what I've heard. You will perhaps think the evidence not worth
much, Miss Castlemaine, for the man who saw him was three parts tipsy
at the time: but he must have had his wits about him, for all that."
To make clear to the reader what the landlord was about to relate we
must go back to the previous evening. On that evening at twilight,
John Bent sauntered over to the beach, and sat down on the bench to
smoke his pipe. It was a fine, still evening, favourable for the
fishing-boats. While he was smoking peaceably, and gazing at the
stars, beginning to show themselves in the sky, Jack Tuff, the sailor,
strolled up, gave the landlord the good evening, and took his seat on
the same bench. He produced his pipe, evidently wanting to smoke; but
he just as evidently had no tobacco. John handed him some, and allowed
him to light the pipe by his own. Talking of this and that, they
somehow got upon the subject of Anthony Castlemaine's disappearance:
and Mr. Tuff, perhaps out of gratitude for the good tobacco, avowed to
his astonished companion that he could have confirmed his evidence,
had he chosen, as to it having been Mr. Castlemaine who had crossed
the road to the chapel ruins that fatal February night.
According to Mr. Jack Tuff's account, his own movements that night had
been as follows. He had walked over to the little fishing hamlet,
Beeton and taken a glass with a comrade there. It might have been two
glasses. At any rate, it was enough to make Jack wish to pay another
social visit as he went back to Greylands, instead of going straight
home. In one of the three cottages situate at the back of Greylands'
Rest, there lodged a sailor friend of Jack's: and accordingly Jack
turned up Chapel Lane--the nearest way from where he then was--to make
the call. There he stayed until late, taking other glasses, very late
indeed for the quiet village; and he turned out considerably after
eleven o'clock with unsteady legs. He staggered down Chapel Lane
pretty safely until he neared the other end of it. When opposite the
turning to the Hutt, who should emerge from that turning but some tall
man. At the moment, Jack Tuff happened to be holding on with one arm
to a tree trunk, to steady himself: but he made it out to be Mr.
Castlemaine, and attempted to pull his old round hat off in token of
respect. He did not know whether Mr. Castlemaine saw him; but fancied
he did not see him. Mr. Castlemaine went up the lane towards his home,
and Jack Tuff went on down it.
So far, that might be regarded as a corroboration of the Master of
Greylands' statement at the time--namely, that he had left the Hutt
about half-past eleven after smoking a pipe with the Commodore: and
the probability seemed to be that Mr. Castlemaine had not seen Jack
Tuff, or he might have called on him to confirm his testimony as to
the hour.
Jack Tuff continued his progress down the small remaining portion of
the lane, trying all the while to put on his hat: which he had
succeeded in getting off at last. Something was undoubtedly the matter
with either the head or the hat; for the hat would not go on the head,
or the head into the hat. A branch of a tree, or something, caught
Jack's elbow, and the hat dropped; Jack, in stooping for it, dropped
also; and there he was, sitting amid the trunks of trees on the side
of the lane, his back propped against one of them and his hat nowhere.
How long Jack remained there he did not pretend to say. His impression
was that he fell asleep; but whether that was so, or not, Jack could
not have told had he been bribed with a golden sovereign. At any rate,
the next thing he heard or remembered, was, that some steps were
coming down the lane. Jack looked up, and saw they were those of the
Master of Greylands.
"Are you sure it was him?" interrupted John Bent, at this point of the
narration, edging a little bit nearer to Jack on the bench.
"In course I'm sure," replied Jack Tuff. "The moonlight shone full
upon him through the leafless branches of the trees, and I saw him
plain. He didn't see me that time, for sure. I was in the dark, back
amid the clump o' trees; and he went along with his head and eyes
straight afore him to the end o' the lane."
"And where did he go then?"
"Don't know. He didn't come back again. Suppose he was crossing over
to the Keep."
"Well, go on," said John.
There was not much more to tell. After this incident, the passing of
the Master of Greylands, Mr. Tuff bethought himself that he might as
well be getting homewards. To make a start, however, was not easy of
accomplishment. First he had to find his hat, which took up some
considerable tune: it was only when he had given it up for lost that
he became conscious it was doubled up under him as he sat. Next he had
to pull out his match-box and light his pipe: and that also took time.
Lastly he had to get upon his legs, a work requiring skill, but
accomplished by the friendly aid of the trees. Altogether from a
quarter to half an hour must have been used in the process. Once
fairly started and clear of the lane, he came upon Mr. Bent, pacing
about opposite the ruins and waiting for Mr. Anthony Castlemaine.
"Did you hear the pistol-shot?" asked John Bent when the recital was
over.
"Never heard it at all," said Jack Tuff. "I must have been feeling for
my hat."
"And why did you not say at the time that you saw the Master of
Greylands--and so have borne out my story?" demanded John Bent as a
final question.
"I dare say!" retorted Jack Tuff: "and he laughed at for an imbecile
who was drunk and saw double! Nobody 'ud believe me. I'm not a going
to say it now, Mr. Bent, except to you. I'm not a going to draw down
Mr. Castlemaine upon me, and perhaps get put away in gaol."
And this was all John Bent got from him. That the man spoke the strict
truth according to his belief--namely, that it was Mr. Castlemaine he
saw both times that night--John could have staked his life upon. But
that the man was equally determined not to say so much to the world,
fearing the displeasure of Mr. Castlemaine: nay, that he probably
would deny it in toto if the world questioned him, the landlord was
equally sure of.
Miss Castlemaine heard the narrative in silence. It did not shake her
belief in the innocence of her uncle; but it made it more difficult to
confute John Bent, and she was now sorry to have spoken to him at all.
With a deep sigh she turned to depart.
"We can only wait the elucidation that time will bring," she said to
the landlord. "Rely upon it that if any ill deed was done that night,
Mr. Castlemaine had no hand in it."
John Bent maintained a respectful silence. They crossed the ruins, and
he held open the gate for her to pass through. Just then she
remembered another topic, and spoke of it.
"What is it that appears at the casements here, in the guise of a Grey
Friar? Two of the Sisters have been alarmed by it to-night."
"Something like a dozen people have been scared by it lately," said
John. "As to what it is, ma'am, I don't know. Senseless idiots, to
be frightened! as if a ghost could harm us! I should like to see it
appear to me!"
With this answer, betraying not only his superiority to the Greylands
world in general, but his inward bravery, and a mutual goodnight,
they parted. John going up the hill with his basket; Miss Castlemaine
turning towards the Nunnery, and pondering deeply.
Strange, perhaps, to say, considering the state Jack Tuff was avowedly
in that eventful night, a conviction that his sight had not deceived
him, had taken hold of her. That some mystery did attach to that
night, independent of the disappearance of Anthony, she had always
fancied: and this evidence only served to confirm it. Many a time the
thought had arisen in her mind, but only to be driven back again, that
her uncle was not as open in regard to that night's doings as he ought
to be. Had it been possible that such an accusation, such a suspicion,
whether openly made or only implied, had been brought against herself,
she should have stood boldly forth to confront her accusers and assert
her innocence, have taken Heaven to witness to it, if needs were. He
had not done this; he had never spoken of it voluntarily, good or bad;
in short, he shunned the subject--and it left an unsatisfactory
impression. What should Mr. Castlemaine want in the chapel ruins at
that midnight hour?--what could he want? But if it was he who went in
why did he deny it? Put it that it was really Mr. Castlemaine, why then
the inference was that he must know what became of Anthony. It seemed
very strange altogether; a curious, unaccountable, mysterious affair.
Mary felt it to be so. Not that she lost an iota of faith in her uncle;
she seemed to trust him as she would have trusted her father; but her
mind was troubled, her brain was in a chaos of confusion.
In some such confusion as she stepped bodily into a minute later. At
the gate of the Nunnery she found herself in the midst of a small
crowd, a small excited number of people who were running up and
jostled her. Women were crying and panting, girls were pushing: a man
with some object covered up in his arms, was in the midst. When the
garb of Miss Castlemaine was recognized in the gloom as that of the
Grey Sisters, all fell respectfully back.
"What is amiss, good people!" asked Sister Mary Ursula. And a faint
moan of sympathy escaped her as she heard the answer. Polly Gleeson,
one of Tim Gleeson's numerous little ones, had set her night-gown on
fire and was terribly burnt. Tim was somewhere abroad, as usual: but
another man had offered to bring the child to the Grey Ladies--the
usual refuge for accidents and sickness.
Admitted to the Nunnery, the little sufferer was carried up to one of
the small beds always kept in readiness. Sister Mildred herself, who
was great in burns, came to her at once, directing two of the Sisters
what was to be done. The sobbing mother, Nancy Gleeson, who was a
great simpleton but had a hard life of it on the whole, asked whether
she might not stay and watch by Polly for the night: but the Ladies
recommended her to go home to her other children and to leave Polly to
them in all confidence. Sister Mildred pronounced the burns, though
bad to look at and very painful, not to be attended with danger:
should the latter arise, she promised Nancy Gleeson to send for her at
once. So Nancy went away pacified, the crowd attending her; and the
good Ladies were left to their charge and to the night-watch it
entailed.
But Sister Mary Ursula had recognized, among the women and girls
pressing round the gate, the face of Jane Hallet. She recognized the
dress also, as the one she had seen before that night.
Meanwhile John Bent reached the coastguard station. After chatting
with the sick woman's husband, Henry Mann, who happened to be off duty
and at home, John departed again with his empty basket. He chanced to
be on the side opposite the Friar's Keep; for that path led direct
from the preventive station--just as the two Sisters, Ann and Rachel,
had taken it rather more than an hour earlier. John Bent, quite
unconscious of what had happened to them, walked along leisurely, his
mind full of the interview just held with Miss Castlemaine. In passing
the Friar's Keep he cast his eyes up to it. Few people passed it at
night without casting up their eyes--for the fascination that
superstition has for most of us is irresistible. Were we told that a
ghost was in the next lane, a large percentage of us would run off to
see it. Even as John looked, a faint light dawned on the casement from
within: and there came into view the figure, bearing its lamp. It was
probably just at that selfsame moment that the eyes of Madame Guise,
gazing stealthily from the window of Mr. Castlemaine's study, were
regaled with the same sight. John Bent did not like it any more than
madame did; any more than the Sisters did. He took to his heels, and
arrived at the Dolphin in a state of cold chill indescribable.