I longed to tell him that there was no way in which he could help me so much as by taking his instant departure. To make love to a young lady with a ghost sitting on the railing near by, and that ghost the apparition of a much-dreaded uncle, the very idea of whom in such a position and at such a time made me tremble, was a difficult, if not an impossible, thing to do; but I forbore to speak, although I may have looked, my mind. "I suppose," continued the ghost, "that you have not heard anything that might be of advantage to me. Of course I am very anxious to hear; but if you have anything to tell me I can wait until you are alone. I will come to you to-night in your room, or I will stay here until the lady goes away." "You need not wait here," I said; "I have nothing at all to say to you." Madeline sprang to her feet, her face flushed and her eyes ablaze. "Wait here!" she cried. "What do you suppose I am waiting for? Nothing to say to me indeed!--I should think so! What should you have to say to me?" "Madeline," I exclaimed, stepping toward her, "let me explain." But she had gone. Here was the end of the world for me! I turned fiercely to the ghost. "Wretched existence!" I cried. "You have ruined everything. You have blackened my whole life. Had it not been for you--" But here my voice faltered. I could say no more. "You wrong me," said the ghost. "I have not injured you. I have tried only to encourage and assist you, and it is your own folly that has done this mischief. But do not despair. Such mistakes as these can be explained. Keep up a brave heart. Good-by." And he vanished from the railing like a bursting soap-bubble. I went gloomily to bed, but I saw no apparitions that night except those of despair and misery which my wretched thoughts called up. The words I had uttered had sounded to Madeline like the basest insult. Of course there was only one interpretation she could put upon them. As to explaining my ejaculations, that was impossible. I thought the matter over and over again as I lay awake that night, and I determined that I would never tell Madeline the facts of the case. It would be better for me to suffer all my life than for her to know that the ghost of her uncle haunted the house. Mr. Hinckman was away, and if she knew of his ghost she could not be made to believe that he was not dead. She might not survive the shock! No, my heart could bleed, but I would never tell her.