"
"Very," I admitted, feeling that my hair was beginning to stand up
again.
"You see," he went on presently, "it all points to volition--in fact to
deliberate arrangement. It is no mere family ghost that goes with every
ivied house in England of a certain age; it is something real, and
something very malignant."
He raised his face from the gun barrel, and for the first time his eye
caught mine in the full. Yes, he was very much in earnest. Also, he knew
a great deal more than he meant to tell.
"It's worth tempting--and fighting, _I_ think," he said; "but I want a
companion with me. Are you game?" His enthusiasm undoubtedly caught me,
but I still wanted to hedge a bit.
"I'm very sceptical," I pleaded.
"All the better," he said, almost as if to himself. "You have the pluck;
I have the knowledge--"
"The knowledge?"
He looked round cautiously as if to make sure that there was no one
within earshot.
"I've been in the place myself," he said in a lowered voice, "quite
lately--in fact only three nights ago--the day the man turned queer."
I stared.
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