Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/40

30 over the fields, I felt a touch upon my shoulder. I cannot say that I was actually touched, but I experienced a feeling which indicated that the individual who had apparently touched me would have done so had he been able. I instantly turned, and saw, standing beside me, a tall figure in the uniform of a Russian officer. I started back, but made no sound. I knew what the figure was. It was a spectre—a veritable ghost.

Some years before this place had been haunted. I knew this well, for I had seen the ghost myself. But before my marriage the spectre had disappeared, and had not been seen since; and I must admit that my satisfaction, when thinking of this estate, without mortgage or incumbrance, was much increased by the thought that even the ghost, who used to haunt the house, had now departed.

But here he was again. Although in different form and guise, I knew him. It was the same ghost.

"Do you remember me?" said the figure.

"Yes," I answered: "I remember you in the form in which you appeared to me some time ago. Although your aspect is entirely changed, I feel you to be the same ghost that I have met before."

"You are right," said the spectre. "I am glad to see you looking so well, and apparently happy. But John Hinckman, I understand, is in a very low state of health."

"Yes," I said: "he is very old and ill. But I hope," I continued, as a cloud of anxiety began to rise within me, "that his expected decease has no connection with any prospects or plans of your own."