"I knew we should have a death in the house before long. There's been a winding-sheet in the candle twice this week; and on Sunday night as I came over the marshes three corpse-candles appeared there, and seemed to follow me all the way across. I didn't think it would be the Squire, though: I thought of Bolton's wife." Bolton was the coachman, and his wife was delicate. "Hush, granny!" reproved Hubert; "all that is nonsense, you know. Why does not the Squire call in further advice?" he added after a pause. "Spreckley's not good for much save a gossip." "I asked him why not," said Aaron; "but he seems to think his time is come. If they could only keep him alive till next April, he says: that's all he harps upon." "And I am sure there must be means of doing it," cried Hubert. "What one medical man can't do, another may. I have a great mind to call in Dr. Jago--saying nothing about it beforehand. He is wonderfully clever." "The master might not forgive you, Hubert." "But if the new man could prolong his life!" debated Hubert. "I'll think about it," he added, catching up his low-crowned hat. He walked across the yard in his well-made shooting-coat that a lord might wear, and whistled to one of the dogs. The two housemaids stood in what was called the keeping-room, ironing fine things at the table underneath the window. They looked after the young man with admiring eyes. He held himself aloof from them, as a master does from a servant, but the girls liked him, for in manner to them he was civil and kind. "Is he not handsome?" cried Ann. "And aren't both the old people proud of him?" "What do you think I saw last night?" said Martha in a low tone, as Hubert Stone disappeared through the green door leading to the shrubbery. "I was coming home from that errand to Nullington, when, out there in the park, hiding behind a tree and peering at our windows here, was a grey figure that one might have taken for a ghost--poor Susan Keen. She did give me a turn, though." "I wonder they don't stop her watching the house at night in the way she does," returned Ann, shaking out one of Mrs. Stone's muslin caps. "It gives one a creepy feeling to have her watching the windows like that--and to know what she's watching for." "You know what she says, Ann!" "Yes, I know; and a very uncomfortable thing it is," rejoined the younger servant. "If she sees Katherine at the window----" "She told me again last night that she does see her," interrupted the elder; "has seen her three times now, in all. She says that Katherine stands at the window of her old room, in the moonlight." Ann began to tremble; she was nearly as superstitious as old Dorothy. "Don't you see what it implies, Martha? If Katherine is seen at the window, she must be in the house, that's all. I wish they'd have that north wing barred up!" "You are ironing that net handkerchief all askew, Ann!"