“That was lasst year. I’m not afraid of ’ee, now, Steve.” “Tha doan’t knaw me, lass.” “Aye, I knaw thee. I knaw tha’s sick and starved for want of me. Tha canna live wi’out thy awn lass to take care of ’ee.” She rose. “I maun gaw now. But I’ll be oop to-morrow and the next day.” And to-morrow and the next day and the next, at dusk, the hour that Steven most dreaded, Dorsy came. She sat with him till long after the night had fallen. Steven would have felt safe so long as she was with him, but for his fear that Mr. Greathead would appear to him while she was there and that she would see him. If Dorsy knew he was being haunted she might guess why. Or Mr. Greathead might take some horrible blood-dripping and dismembered shape that would show her how he had been murdered. It would be like him, dead, to come between them as he had come when he was living. They were sitting at the round table by the fireside. The lamp was lit and Dorsy was bending over her sewing. Suddenly she looked up, her head on one side, listening. Far away inside the house, on the flagged passage from the front door, he could hear the “shoob-shoob” of the footsteps. He could almost believe that Dorsy shivered. And somehow, for some reason, this time he was not afraid. “Steven,” she said, “didsta ’ear anything?” “Naw. Nobbut t’ wind oonder t’ roogs.” She looked at him; a long wondering look. Apparently it satisfied her, for she answered: “Aye. Mebbe ’tes nobbut wind,” and went on with her sewing. He drew his chair nearer to her to protect her if it came. He could almost touch her where she sat. The latch lifted. The door opened, and, his entrance and his passage unseen, Mr. Greathead stood before them. The table hid the lower half of his form; but above it he was steady and solid in his terrible semblance of flesh and blood. Steven looked at Dorsy. She was staring at the phantasm with an innocent, wondering stare that had no fear in it at all. Then she looked at Steven. An uneasy, frightened, searching look, as though to make sure whether he had seen it. That was her fear—that _he_ should see it, that _he_ should be frightened, that _he_ should be haunted. He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. He thought, perhaps, she might shrink from him because she knew that it _was_ he who was haunted. But no, she put up her hand and held his, gazing up into his face and smiling. Then, to his amazement, the phantasm smiled back at them; not with mockery, but with a strange and terrible sweetness. Its face lit up for one instant with a sudden, beautiful, shining light; then it was gone. “Did tha see ’im, Steve?” “Aye.” “Astha seen annything afore?” “Aye, three times I’ve seen ’im.” “Is it that ’as scared thee?” “’Oo tawled ’ee I was scared?” “I knawed. Because nowt can ’appen to thee but I maun knaw it.” “What dostha think, Dorsy?”