Dinner that day was quite an hour later than usual. General St. George had been to see an old friend who was ill, and he did not get back till late. Contrary to his usual practice, Richard Dering sat this evening with his uncle and cousin, after the cloth was removed: He sat drinking his wine in an absent mood, and scarcely joining in the conversation at all. By-and-by Pearce brought a note to the General on a salver. He put on his spectacles, opened the note, and read it. Then, with a little peevish exclamation, he tossed it into the fire. “Another of them,” he said. “We shall be left before long without a servant to wait on us. I certainly did not anticipate this annoyance when I came to live at Park Newton.” “What is the annoyance of which you speak?” asked Kester. “Why, that fellow Finch has just given me notice that he intends to leave this day month. That will make the sixth of them, man or maid, that has left me since I came here; and I hear that the rest, old and new, are all likely to follow suit before long.” “You astonish me,” said Kester. “You have always seemed to me the most indulgent of masters. If anything, too lenient—excuse me, sir, for saying so—and I can’t understand at all why these idiots should want to leave you.” “Oh, it’s not me they want to leave: it’s the house that doesn’t suit them.” “The house! And what have they to complain of as regards the house?” “They swear, every man jack of them, that it’s haunted.” Kester’s pale face became a shade paler. He fingered his empty wine glass nervously and did not answer for a little while. “Park Newton haunted! What ridiculous nonsense is this?” he said at last with a forced laugh. “I lived in the house for years when I was a lad; but I certainly never knew before that it had so peculiar a reputation.” “It is only of late—only since the murder last May—that people have got into the way of saying these things.” Again Kester was silent. Richard Dering’s keen glance was fixed on his face. He felt it rather than saw it. His under lip quivered slightly. He moved uneasily in his chair. “What a parcel of blockheads these people must be!” he exclaimed at last. “Do we live in the nineteenth century, or have we gone back to the middle ages? If I were in your place, sir, I would send the whole lot packing, and have an entirely new set from London. It is only these superstitious country-bred louts who believe in such rubbish as ghosts: your thoroughbred Cockney has no faith in anything half so unsubstantial.”