"The house is very old indeed," she went on, "and the story--an unpleasant one--dates a long way back. It has to do with a murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with a servant in the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar, and when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants' quarters, chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come to the rescue threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall below." "And the stableman--?" "Was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder; but it all happened a century ago, and I've not been able to get more details of the story." Shorthouse now felt his interest thoroughly aroused; but, though he was not particularly nervous for himself, he hesitated a little on his aunt's account. "On one condition," he said at length. "Nothing will prevent my going," she said firmly; "but I may as well hear your condition." "That you guarantee your power of self-control if anything really horrible happens. I mean--that you are sure you won't get too frightened." "Jim," she said scornfully, "I'm not young, I know, nor are my nerves; but _with you_ I should be afraid of nothing in the world!" This, of course, settled it, for Shorthouse had no pretensions to being other than a very ordinary young man, and an appeal to his vanity was irresistible. He agreed to go. Instinctively, by a sort of sub-conscious preparation, he kept himself and his forces well in hand the whole evening, compelling an accumulative reserve of control by that nameless inward process of gradually putting all the emotions away and turning the key upon them--a process difficult to describe, but wonderfully effective, as all men who have lived through severe trials of the inner man well understand. Later, it stood him in good stead. But it was not until half-past ten, when they stood in the hall, well in the glare of friendly lamps and still surrounded by comforting human influences, that he had to make the first call upon this store of collected strength. For, once the door was closed, and he saw the deserted silent street stretching away white in the moonlight before them, it came to him clearly that the real test that night would be in dealing with _two fears_ instead of one. He would have to carry his aunt's fear as well as his own. And, as he glanced down at her sphinx-like countenance and realised that it might assume no pleasant aspect in a rush of real terror, he felt satisfied with only one thing in the whole adventure--that he had confidence in his own will and power to stand against any shock that might come.