"I am so glad you have been able to come," said Benjamin. "I have a most shocking disclosure to make to you. I am afraid that--but I hardly know how to say it--that--I really must break it off." "Break what off?" "Our engagement." "Nonsense. I have been fitted for my trousseau." "Your what?" "My wedding-dresses." "Oh, I beg pardon. I did not understand your French pronunciation. I thought--but it does not matter what I thought." "Pray what is the sense of this?" "Philippa, my affection for you is unabated. Do not suppose that I love you one whit the less. But I am oppressed by a horrible nightmare--daymare as well. I am haunted." "Haunted, indeed!" "Yes; by my late wife. She allows me no peace. She has made up her mind that I shall not marry you." "Oh! Is that all? I am haunted also." "Surely not?" "It is a fact." "Hush, hush!" from persons in front and at the side. Neither Ben nor Philippa had noticed that the curtain had risen and that the play had begun. "We are disturbing the audience," whispered Mr. Woolfield. "Let us go out into the passage and promenade there, and then we can talk freely." So both rose, left their stalls, and went into the _couloir_. "Look here, Philippa," said he, offering the girl his arm, which she took, "the case is serious. I am badgered out of my reason, out of my health, by the late Mrs. Woolfield. She always had an iron will, and she has intimated to me that she will force me to give you up." "Defy her." "I cannot." "Tut! these ghosts are exacting. Give them an inch and they take an ell. They are like old servants; if you yield to them they tyrannise over you." "But how do you know, Philippa, dearest?" "Because, as I said, I also am haunted." "That only makes the matter more hopeless." "On the contrary, it only shows how well suited we are to each other. We are in one box." "Philippa, it is a dreadful thing. When my wife was dying she told me she was going to a better world, and that we should never meet again. _And she has not kept her word._" The girl laughed. "Rag her with it." "How can I?" "You can do it perfectly. Ask her why she is left out in the cold. Give her a piece of your mind. Make it unpleasant for her. I give Jehu no good time." "Who is Jehu?" "Jehu Post is the ghost who haunts me. When in the flesh he was a great admirer of mine, and in his cumbrous way tried to court me; but I never liked him, and gave him no encouragement. I snubbed him unmercifully, but he was one of those self-satisfied, self-assured creatures incapable of taking a snubbing. He was a Plymouth Brother." "My wife was a Plymouth Sister."