Jiff went out again; there was nothing to stay for. I followed, leaving Miss Timmens and Harriet to have it out together. She had really been ill in bed all the time, Mrs. James and Roe attending on her. It did not suit them to admit visitors; for James Roe, who had fallen into some difficulty in London, connected with forged bills, was lying concealed at Willow Cottage. That's why people were kept out. It would not have done by any means for Miss Timmens and her sharp eyes to go upstairs and catch a glimpse of him; so they concocted the tale that Harriet was away. James Roe was safely away now, and Louis with him. Louis had been mixed up in the bill trouble in a lesser degree: but quite enough so to induce him to absent himself from London for a time, and to stay quietly at North Crabb. "Was it fear or ague that caused you to shake so that last evening I saw you here?" questioned Miss Timmens. "Ague. I never got out of bed after that night. I could hardly write that letter, aunt, that Louis sent to London to be posted to you." "And--did you really see David Garth?" "No, I never saw him," said Harriet. "But, after all the reports and talk, I was timid at being in the house alone--James and his wife had not come then--and that's why I asked you to let me stay at the school-house the night my husband was away." "But it was told me that you _did_ see him." "I was always frightened for fear I should." "It strikes me you have had other causes for fright as well, Harriet," cried shrewd Miss Timmens. "Well, you see--this business of James Roe's has put me about. Every knock that came to the door seemed to me to be somebody coming for _him_. My husband says the ghost is all rubbish and fancy, Aunt Susan." "Rubbish and fancy, does he?" "He says that when he came in here with Johnny Ludlow, the night there was that commotion, in going up for some matches, he fell over something at the top of the stairs by the end casement, and flung it behind the rafters. Next day he saw what it was. I had tied a white cloth over a small dwarf mop to sweep the walls with, and must have left it near the window. I remembered that I did leave it there. It no doubt looked in the moonlight just like a white face. And that's what was taken for David's ghost." Miss Timmens paused, considering matters: she might believe just as much of this as she liked. "It appeared again at the same place, Harriet, two or three days ago." "That was me, aunt. I saw you all looking up, and drew away again for fear you should know me. Mrs. James was making my bed, and I had crawled there." There it ended. So far the mystery was over. The explanation was confided to the public, who received it differently. Some accepted the mop version; others clung to the ghost. And Hill never had a penny of his rent. Louis Roe was away; and, as it turned out, did not come back again.