‘Arthur, don’t call me silly, but I am _certain_ I heard something.’ To appease her fears, I shook off my drowsiness, and, with a lighted candle, made a tour of the house; but all was as I had left it. Once, indeed, I imagined that I heard at my side the sound of a quick breathing; but that I knew must be sheer fancy, since I was alone. The only circumstance that startled me was finding Dawson, the man servant, who slept on the ground floor, also awake, and listening at his door. ‘What roused you, Dawson?’ ‘Well, sir, I can hardly say; but I fancied I heard some one going up the stairs a little while ago.’ ‘You heard me coming down, you mean.’ ‘No, sir, begging your pardon, it was footsteps going up—lighter than yours, sir. More like those of a woman.’ Yet, though I privately interrogated the female servants on the following day, I could not discover that any of them had been out of their beds; and I forbore to tell my wife what Dawson had said in corroboration of her statement. Only I was as much annoyed as astonished when, as I finished my catechism of Mary, our head nurse, she informed me that she had made up her mind to leave our service. Mary—my wife’s right hand—who had been with us ever since the birth of our first child! The announcement took me completely aback. ‘What on earth is your reason for leaving us?’ I demanded angrily; for I knew what a blow her decision would be to Jane. ‘What have you to find fault with?’ ‘Nothing with you or the mistress, sir; but I can’t remain in this house. I wouldn’t stay in it a night longer, if it were possible to get away; and I do hope you and Mrs Delamere will let me go as soon as ever you can, sir, as it will be the death of me.’ ‘What will be the death of you?’ ‘The footsteps, sir, and the voices,’ she answered, crying. ‘I can hear them about the nurseries all night long, and it’s more than any mortal can stand—it is, indeed.’ ‘Are you infected with the same folly?’ I exclaimed. ‘I see what it is, Dawson has been talking to you. I didn’t know I had such a couple of fools in my establishment.’ ‘Mr Dawson has said nothing to me about nothing, sir,’ she answered. ‘I hear what I hear with my own ears; and I wouldn’t stay a week longer in this ’aunted place, not if you was to strew the floor with golden guineas for me.’ Not possessing either the capability or the inclination to test Mary’s fidelity by the means she alluded to, and finding her determination unalterable, I gave her the desired permission to depart; only making it a stipulation that she should not tell her mistress the real reason for her leaving us, but ascribe it to bad news from home, or any other cause.