Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/76

 Graham did not reply at once. He was looking at the place where the young woman had been. 'I don't think so,' he then said. 'It looked like a peasant woman.' He had a curiously perplexed expression and it was curious to hear him say 'it' as if speaking of an animal; an unknown, beautiful animal that had crossed their path.

'I think we'd better knock,' said Jill, after they had stood in silence for another moment.

'What about going back?' said Dick, looking at her, still with the curious look; though he smiled.

'Going back?'

'Yes. What if Childe Roland didn't blow the horn?'

'But Dick!' Jill tried to laugh, not quite succeeding, 'are you frightened?'

'Perhaps I am. Or perhaps I'm superstitious.'

'Do you think it was a ghost?' smiled Jill, and her own lips felt a little queer.

'Well, it may have been, you know.' Graham had Highland blood and it had played him, Jill knew, a trick or two before this. She would not tolerate the mood. 'Well, we'll face it, then,' she said, and she lifted her hand with determination to the knocker.

But before she had sounded it, the door swung open. It seemed, as if her words had been a spell, to have opened of itself and even Jill's calm English blood gave an unpleasant turn. Then she saw that behind the door was Joseph.

 ' Entrez, Monsieur et Dame,' he said.

'But we did not ring! We did not knock! How did