Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE GHOST GIRL BY THE SAME AUTHOR Sea Plunder $1.30 net The Gold Trail $1.30 net The Pearl Fishers $1.30 net The Presentation $1.30 net The New Optimism $1.00 net Poppyland $2.00 net The Poems of Francois Villon Translated by H. DE VERE STACPOOLE Boards $3.00 net Half Morocco $7.50 net THE GHOST GIRL BY H. DE VERE STACPOOLE AUTHOR OF "THE MAN WHO LOST HIMSELF," "SEA PLUNDER," "THE PEARL FISHERS," "THE GOLD TRAIL," ETC. NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD TORONTO: S. B GUNDY--MCMXVIII Copyright, 1918 By JOHN LANE COMPANY PRESS OF VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY BINGHAMTON, N. Y. U. S. A. THE GHOST GIRL PART I CHAPTER I It was a warm, grey, moist evening, typical Irish weather, and Miss Berknowles was curled up in a window-seat of the library reading a book. Kilgobbin Park lay outside with the rooks cawing in the trees, miles of park land across which the dusk was coming, blotting out all things from Arranakilty to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. The turf fire burning on the great hearth threw out a rich steady glow that touched the black oak panelling of the room, the book backs, and the long-nosed face of Sir Nicholas Berknowles "attributed to Lely" and looking down at his last descendant from a dusty canvas on the opposite wall. The girl made a prettier picture. Red hair when it is of the right colour is lovely, and Phylice Berknowles' hair was of the right red, worn in a tail--she was only fifteen--so long that she could bite the end with ease and comfort when she was in a meditative mood, a habit of perdition that no schoolmistress could break her of. She was biting her tail now as she read, up to her eyes in the marvellous story of the Gold Bug, and now, unable to read any more by the light from the window, she came to the fire, curled herself on the hearthrug and continued the adventures of the treasure-seekers by the light of the burning turf. What a pretty face it was, seen by the full warm glow of the turf, and what a perfectly shaped head! It was not the face and head of a Berknowles as you could easily have perceived had you compared it with the portraits in the picture gallery, but of a Mascarene.