It returned to Sybil's memory, however, when she found herself in their London house again, and called upon by her younger sisters to relate every detail of Monksholdings and its neighbourhood. But mindful of her father's warning, she said nothing to Esther or Annis of the figure at the gate. It was only to Miss March--Ellinor March--the dearly-loved governess, who was more friend than teacher to her three pupils, that she spoke of it, late in the evening, when the younger ones had gone to bed, and her father and mother were busy with Indian letters in Mr. Raynald's study. The two girls, we may say--for Ellinor was still some years under thirty--were alone in the drawing-room. Ellinor had been playing something tender and faintly weird--it died away under her fingers, and she sat on at the piano in silence. Sybil spoke suddenly. "That is _so_ melancholy," she said, "something so long ago about it, like the ghost of a sorrow rather than a sorrow itself. I know--I know what it makes me think of. Listen, Ellinor." For out of school hours the two threw formality aside. And Sybil told of the sad, wistful old face looking over the stile. "Now it has come back to me," she said, "I can't forget it." Ellinor, too, was impressed. "Yes," she said, "it sounds very pitiful. Who knows what tragedy is bound up in it?" and she sighed. Sybil understood her. Miss March's own history was a strange one. "We must find out about it when we go down to Monksholdings next year," she said. "And perhaps," added Ellinor, "even if he is half-witted, we might do something to comfort the poor man." Sybil hesitated. "Then you don't think he can be a ghost?" she said, looking half ashamed of the suggestion. Miss March smiled--her smile was sad. "In one sense, no, I should think it highly improbable; in another, yes, there must be the ghost of some great sorrow about the face you describe," she said. So there was. This is the story. At the farther end of Scarby village--the farther end, that is to say, from Monksholdings and the path between the hills--the road drops again somewhat suddenly. Only for a short distance, however; Mayling Farm--"Giles's" as it is colloquially called--which is the first house you come to when you reach level ground again, being by no means low lying. On the contrary, the west windows command a grand view of the great Scarshire plain beneath, bordered by the faint hazy blue, scarcely to be distinguished from clouds, of the long range of hills concealing the far-off glimmer of the ocean, which otherwise might sometimes be perceptible.