Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/38

 experience so sharp a pang of sheer terror. I had masqueraded as one of the ghosts in this accursed house. Well, the other ghost—the real one—had come to meet me. I do not like to dwell on that moment. The only thing which it pleases me to remember is that I did not scream or go mad. I think I stood on the verge of both.

The ghost, I say, took two steps forward; then it threw up its arms, the lighted taper it carried fell on the floor, and it reeled back against the door with its arms across its face.

The fall of the candle woke me as from a nightmare. It fell solidly, and rolled away under the table.

I perceived that my ghost was human. I cried incoherently: “Don’t, for Heaven’s sake—it’s all right.”

The ghost dropped its hands and turned agonised eyes on me. I tore off my cloak and hat.

“I—didn’t—scream,” she said, and with that I sprang forward and caught her in my arms—my poor, pink lady—white now as a white rose.

I carried her into the powdering-room, and left one candle with her, extinguishing the others hastily, for now I saw what in my