“There must be something inside that’s like a musical-box,” she said, more to herself than to him. But he shook his head. “There’s naught. I’ve seen it and I know. ’Tis the fingers of her that plays it--and God knows that’s enough! Pray to Him that you never see her, Miss Trelane”--reverentially. “Did any one ever?” she breathed sharply. “Yes! She walks--all over the house--of nights like this,” he admitted unwillingly. “But I have the servants all sleep in the new wing, else we’d have ne’er a one. But you stay in your bed, miss, and you’ll never see her. And don’t tell Miss Cristiane; her father never let her hear of any such tales.” “I won’t tell her; for one thing, I don’t believe in it,” Ismay said sharply. But she showed no sign of leaving the pantry. “Who was the ghost, Thomas, and what did she do, that she walks?”--seating herself on one end of his table. “She was a Lady Le Marchant,” he began sullenly, but at her interested face he warmed suddenly to his tale. “You’ll give your word you’ll not tell Miss Cristiane?” he promised. “Not I,” she answered, her elbows on her knees, her chin in the palm of her hand, in a curious crouching attitude that brought her eyes full on his as he faced her. “Go on, Thomas.” “Well, then, she was a Lady Le Marchant. And her husband, Sir Guy, fairly doted on her; but she was a childless woman, and given up to pleasure and dancing, and the like. She had lovers by the score, but she never cared for one of them beyond the first day or so. Fair she was, they say; as fair as you, Miss Trelane”--glancing at her flaxen hair--“and ’tis her picture hangs in the room with the spinet. ’Twas done by a foreign artist Sir Guy had over from Italy, and that man the lady loved. “While the picture was being painted Sir Guy noticed nothing, but when ’twas done, and the man still stayed on, he wondered. And one day he saw them kissing. She was playing the tune she loved best of all on that spinet, and the foreign artist was behind her. And, not seeing her husband, she throws back her head, and the man kisses her lips. “They say Sir Guy was a proud man. Anyhow, he turned and went away as if he’d seen nothing. “But that night he told her, as she was singing herself that ungodly tune she was forever playing on the spinet. “Whatever he said no one knows. But it must have maddened her, for she whipped up a knife that was on a table and stabbed him to the heart. “He put out his hands to her, and one of them marked the dress she had on with a stain of blood on the breast. But he lay dead in his chair, and she with his blood wet on her gown went down-stairs to the artist, and told him plump and plain what she’d done for his sake. And he would have none of her.” “He was a fool; she must have been good stuff,” observed his listener musingly. “But I don’t know. She should have known him better first.”