Page:The Mystery of a Hansom Cab.djvu/169

Rh "By what?" asked Brian, skeptically.

"Noises!" she answered, solemnly.

Brian burst out laughing and startled a bat, which flew round and round in the silver moonlight, and whirred away into the shelter of a witch elm.

"Rats and mice are more common here than ghosts," he said lightly. "I'm afraid the inhabitants of your haunted house were fanciful."

"So you don't believe in ghosts?"

"There's a Banshee in our family," said Brian, with a gay smile, "who is supposed to cheer our deathbeds with her howling; but as I've never seen the lady myself, I'm afraid she's a Mrs. Harris."

"It's aristocratic to have a ghost in a family, I believe," said Madge; "that is the reason we colonials have none."

"Ah, but you will have," he answered with a careless laugh. "There are, no doubt, democratic as well as aristocratic ghosts; but pshaw!" he went on impatiently, "what nonsense I talk. There are no ghosts except of a man's own raising. The ghosts of a dead youth—the ghosts of past follies—the ghosts of what might have been—these are the spectres that are more to be feared than those of the churchyard."

Madge looked at him in silence, for she understood the meaning of that passionate outburst—the secret which the dead woman had told him, and which hung like a shadow over his life. She arose quietly and took his arm. The light touch roused him, and a faint wind sent an eerie rustle through the still leaves of the magnolia, as they walked back in silence to the house.





Notwithstanding the hospitable invitation of Mr. Frettlby Brian refused to stay at Yabba Yallook that night, but after saying good-bye to Madge, mounted his horse and rode slowly away in the moonlight. He felt very happy as, letting the reins lie on his horse's neck, he gave himself, up unreservedly to his thoughts. Atra Cura certainly did not sit behind the horseman on this night; and Brian, to his