Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/201

 that interminable, desolate marsh which stretches mile on mile to the Roman hills—an old Ghibelline castello with a moat. It stands alone in its marshes, an unhealthy place.' He paused and looked at Lanice speculatively as if he wanted to say that he had advised against the expedition, but that the woman had insisted, and after all she was so much older than he. 'No one has lived there for four hundred years. But it has its ghost...the one thing in the world that Hittie wanted to see, and find out why it, or rather she, walks.'

'So you went to the Maremma?'

'Yes, and spent the night in the castello. We had planned to stay at the inn, and as we knew it would be dirty, we brought our own bedding with us on the coach. But the place was filthy, and Hittie suggested that we sleep in the castello instead. We built a fire in a fireplace that had not been used for centuries, and Gian spread our beds before it. She was very tired and fell asleep instantly. I walked by moonlight through the ruins and listened to the night wind and the dismal croaking of a million frogs. I saw the poisonous miasma steam up from the swamps and finger through the broken windows of the castello, and I feared fever. When I came back to Hittie, a slight change had come over her. I never again saw her quite herself, although it was some days before she came down with her sickness.'

'Why?'

'She had seen the ghost.'

'Oh, but you do not believe that!'