In a moment Lyon had his glimmering taper in hand, and as he was leaving the room (he did not disturb the others with a good-night; they were absorbed in the lemon-squeezer and the soda-water cork) he remembered other occasions on which he had made his way to bed alone through a darkened country-house; such occasions had not been rare, for he was almost always the first to leave the smoking-room. If he had not stayed in houses conspicuously haunted he had, none the less (having the artistic temperament), sometimes found the great black halls and staircases rather 'creepy': there had been often a sinister effect, to his imagination, in the sound of his tread in the long passages or the way the winter moon peeped into tall windows on landings. It occurred to him that if houses without supernatural pretensions could look so wicked at night, the old corridors of Stayes would certainly give him a sensation. He didn't know whether the proprietors were sensitive; very often, as he had said to Colonel Capadose, people enjoyed the impeachment. What determined him to speak, with a certain sense of the risk, was the impression that the Colonel told queer stories. As he had his hand on the door he said to Arthur Ashmore, 'I hope I shan't meet any ghosts.' 'Any ghosts?' 'You ought to have some--in this fine old part.' 'We do our best, but _que voulez-vous_?' said Mr. Ashmore. 'I don't think they like the hot-water pipes.' 'They remind them too much of their own climate? But haven't you a haunted room--at the end of my passage?' 'Oh, there are stories--we try to keep them up.' 'I should like very much to sleep there,' Lyon said. 'Well, you can move there to-morrow if you like.' 'Perhaps I had better wait till I have done my work.' 'Very good; but you won't work there, you know. My father will sit to you in his own apartments.' 'Oh, it isn't that; it's the fear of running away, like that gentleman three days ago.' 'Three days ago? What gentleman?' Mr. Ashmore asked. 'The one who got urgent letters at breakfast and fled by the 10.20. Did he stand more than one night?' 'I don't know what you are talking about. There was no such gentleman--three days ago.'