Tom Ossington's Ghost

"If you don't open the door at once, I shall break the glass and let myself in that way!"

She assailed the window-pane with a degree of violence which suggested that she meant what she said; then flattened her nose against it in an endeavour to discover who might be within. While she peered, the door was opened, and some one did come in. She started back.

"Who on earth-"

She was going to say. "Who on earth is that?" But when she got so far, she stopped-because she knew. At least in part.

First through the door there came a woman. And, although she could scarcely credit the evidence of her own eyesight, in her she recognised the visitor of the day but one before-the creature who had persisted in calling herself "the ghost's wife." At her heels there was a man, a perfect stranger to Madge. Having recognised the woman, she looked to see in her companion the loafer of the previous afternoon-but this certainly was not he. This was a miserable, insignificant-looking fellow, very much down at heel-and apparently very much down at everything else. The woman, with impudent assurance, came striding straight to the window. The man hung back, exhibiting in his bearing every symptom of marked discomfort.

The female, as brazen-faced as if she was on the right side of the window, stared at Madge. And Madge stared at her-amazed.

So amazed, indeed, that for a moment or two she was at a loss for words. When they came at last, they came in the form of an inquiry.

"What," she asked, "are you doing there?"

The woman waved her hand-in fact, she waved both her hands-as if repelling some noxious insect.

"Go away!" she cried; "go away! This house is mine-mine!"

Madge gasped. That the creature was mad, at the best, she made no doubt. But that conviction, in the present situation, was of small assistance. What was she to do?

As she asked herself this question, with no slight sense of helplessness, the gate clicked behind her. Some one entered the garden.

It was Bruce Graham.

CHAPTER XI

UNDER THE SPELL

"Mr. Graham!" she exclaimed. "Really, I do believe that if I had been asked what thing I most desired at this particular moment, I should have answered-you!"

Graham's sombre features were chastened by a smile.

"That's very good of you."

"Look here!" Laying one hand against his arm, with the other she pointed at the sitting-room window. His glance followed her finger-tips.

"Who's that?"

"That's what I should very much like to ascertain."

"I don't quite follow you. Do you mean that you don't know who she is?"

"I only know that I've been away all day, and that on my return I find her there. How she got there I can't say-but she seems determined to keep me out."

"You don't mean that! And have you no notion who the woman is? She looks half mad."

"I should think she must be quite mad. It's the woman who forced herself into the house the day before yesterday after you had gone-that's all I know of her. This time she is not alone; she has a man in there with her."

"A man! Not-Ballingall?"

"No, not Ballingall. At least, I only caught a glimpse of him-but it's not the man who was watching you. From her behaviour the woman must be perfectly insane."

"We'll soon make an end of her, insane or not."

Graham went to the window. The woman, completely unabashed, had remained right in front of it, an observant spectator of their proceedings. He spoke to her.

"Open the door at once!"

She repeated the gesture she had used to Madge-raising her voice, at the same time, to a shrill scream.

"Go away! go away! This house is mine-mine! I don't want any trespassers here."

Graham turned to Madge.

"Do you authorise me to gain an entry?"

"Certainly. I don't want to spend the night out here."

Permission was no sooner given than the thing was done. Grasping the upper sash of the window with both his hands, Graham brought it down with a run, tearing away the hasp from its fastening as if it had been so much thread. It was a capital object-lesson of the utility of such a safeguard against the wiles of a muscular burglar. The upper sash being lowered, in another moment the lower one was raised. Mr. Graham was in the room. The woman was possibly too astonished by the unceremonious nature of his proceedings to attempt any resistance, even had she felt disposed.

Graham addressed Miss Brodie through the window.

"Will you come this way? or shall I open the door?"

"If you wouldn't mind, I'd rather you opened the door."

He opened the door. Presently they were in the sitting-room, face to face with the intruders. Graham took them to task-the woman evincing no sign of discomposure.

"Who are you, and what is the meaning of your presence on these premises?"

"This house is mine-mine! It's all of it mine! And who are you, that you ask such a question-of a lady?"

She crossed her hands on her breast with an assumption of dignity which, in a woman of her figure and scarecrow-like appearance, was sufficiently ludicrous. Graham eyed her as if subjecting her to a mental appraisement. Then he turned to the man.

"And pray, sir, what explanation have you to offer of the felony you are committing?"

This man was a little, undergrown fellow, with sharp hatchet-shaped features, and bent and shrunken figure. He had on an old grey suit of clothes, which was three or four sizes too large for him, the trousers being turned up in a thick roll over the top of an oft-patched pair of side-spring boots. There was about him none of the assurance which marked the woman-the air of bravado which he attempted to wear fitted him as ill as his garments.

"I ain't committed no felony, not likely. She asked me to come to her house-so I come. She says to me, 'You come along o' me to my house, and I'll give you a bit of something to eat.' Now didn't you?"

"Certainly. I suppose a gentleman is allowed to visit a lady if she asks him."

The dreadful-looking woman, as she stood with her head thrown back, and her nose in the air, presented a picture of something which was meant for condescension, which was not without its pathos.

"Of course! – ain't that what I'm saying? She come here, and she took a key out of her pocket, and she put it in the keyhole, and she opened the door, all quite regular, and she says, 'This here's my house,' and she asked me to come in, so of course I come in."

"Do you mean to say that she gained entrance to this house by means of a key which she took from her pocket?"