timorously behind her. Mrs. Wall’s nervous tremors were beginning to infect the poor girl, who was, moreover, very cold, and was longing for some tea. But her young mistress had at least her fair share of an immovable British obstinacy. Finding that both doors were firmly locked and that there was no key to either forthcoming, she flung the whole weight of her massive and muscular young body against the door on the left, until the old wood cracked and the rusty nails rattled in the disused hinges. “Mercy on us!” exclaimed Sarah Wall, petrified by the audacity of the young amazon. “Shoo ’ll have t’ owd place aboot our ears!” “Take the candle, Lucy,” said Olivia, imperiously, perceiving that the dip was flaring and wobbling in an ominous manner in the old woman’s trembling fingers. [Pg 13] [Pg 13] Lucy obeyed, frightened but curious. Her mistress made two more vigorous onslaughts upon the door; the first produced a great creaking and straining; at the second the door gave way on its upper hinge, so that the girl’s strong hands were able to force the lock with ease. She turned to the guide in some triumph. “Now, Mrs. Wall, we’ll unearth your ghost, if there is one. At any rate, we’ll get to the bottom of your mystery in five minutes.” But she did not. Pressing on to the end of a very narrow, unlighted passage in which she now found herself, Olivia came to a second door; this opened easily and admitted her into a large chamber, the aspect of which, dimly seen by the fading light which came through a small square window on her left, filled her brave young spirit with a sudden sense of dreariness and desolation. For it was not empty and lumber-strewn, like the rest of the rooms she had entered. The dark forms of cumbrous, old-fashioned furniture were discernible in the dusk; the heavy hangings of a huge four-post mahogany bedstead shook, as a rat, disturbed by the unwonted intrusion, slid down the curtain and scurried across the floor. As she stepped slowly forward on the carpet, which was damp to the tread, and peered to the right and left in the gloom, Olivia could see strange relics of the room’s last occupant; the withered remains of what had been a bunch of flowers on a table in front of the little window; an assortment of Christmas cards and valentines, all of design now out of date, and all thickly covered with brown
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