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The Incredulity of Father Brown have been a moonbeam or a streak of foam, but which was already beginning to look a little more solid. They had crept a hundred yards nearer, and it was still motionless; but it looked like a statue in silver.

Nares himself looked a little pale and seemed to stand debating what to do. Potter was frankly as much frightened as Horne himself; and even Byrne, who was a hardened reporter, was rather reluctant to go any nearer if he could help it. He could not help considering it a little quaint, therefore, that the only man who did not seem to be frightened of a ghost was the man who had said openly that he might be. For Father Brown was advancing as steadily, at his stumping pace, as if he were going to consult a notice-board.

"It don't seem to bother you much," said Byrne to the priest, "and yet I thought you were the only one who believed in spooks."

"If it comes to that," replied Father Brown, "I thought you were one who didn't believe in them. But believing in ghosts is one thing, and believing in a ghost is quite another."

Byrne looked rather ashamed of himself, and glanced almost covertly at the crumbling headlands in the cold moonlight which were the haunts of the vision or delusion.

"I didn't believe in it till I saw it," he said.

"And I did believe in it till I saw it," said Father Brown.