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Span's owner shook his head; devoted though he was to his dog, he felt he could well do without Span for a while. After Bubbles and Donnington had disappeared together, their eager voices could be heard from the paved court-yard which connected two of the wings of Wyndfell Hall. Span was barking now, barking eagerly, happily, confidently.
A great deal of her material comfort almost, she might have truly said, much of her happiness in life depended on Jane Pegler. In a sense Blanche Farrow had but two close friends in the world her host, Lionel Varick, the new owner of Wyndfell Hall; and the plain, spare, elderly woman standing now before her.
Gratitude had been the foundation of their own now many-year-long friendship. The food was so very good, there was so much of it, and doubtless those who had journeyed down to Wyndfell Hall to-night were all so hungry, that there was rather less talk going on round the table than might have been expected. But now and again the hostess caught a fleeting interchange of words.
"God bless and keep you from any real harm, Bubbles my darling." As regarded Lionel Varick, the second day of his house-party at Wyndfell Hall opened most inauspiciously, for, when approaching the dining-room, he became aware that the door was not really closed, and that Mr. Burnaby and his niece were having what seemed to be an animated and even angry discussion.
He had inherited from a scholarly father a keen interest in church architecture, and he had read an account of Darnaston church the night before in the book which dealt with Wyndfell Hall and its surroundings. They were met in the porch by the bachelor rector. "This is really kind!" he exclaimed.
As you know, ma'am, the servants here are a job lot; they don't know nothing about the house. 'Twasn't till to-day that one of the village people, the woman at the general shop and post office, let on that Wyndfell Hall was well known to be a ghosty place." There was a pause, and then Pegler added: "Still, as you and I well know, ma'am, tales don't lose nothing in the telling."
Unwillingly the doctor walked through into what was certainly a very pleasant, indeed a luxurious room. It was furnished in a more modern way than the other rooms at Wyndfell Hall. "There's a bath-room off this room. That's why Varick, who's a good-natured chap, gave it me. He knows I have a great fear of catching a chill," whispered Mr. Tapster. "We'd better go down," said the doctor at last.
"I spoke just now of the curious occurrences in the Wesley household," he observed, turning to the young doctor. "That, of course, is the most famous case on record of the sort of thing which took place in the kitchen last night." "But why," cried Varick, with a touch of excitement, "why should all these things happen just now at Wyndfell Hall? I know, of course, the story of the haunted room.
He looked as if he had been through some terrible physical experience. "I wish you'd arrange for her to go away, at once I mean, to-morrow. Forgive me for saying such a thing, but I feel that nothing will go right while Bubbles is at Wyndfell Hall," he exclaimed. Blanche looked what he had never seen her look before offended. "I don't think I can get her away to-morrow, Lionel.
After her father's death his daughter, having let Wyndfell Hall, had wandered about the world with a companion till she had drifted across her future husband's path at an hotel in Florence. "What attracted me," Lionel Varick had explained rather awkwardly on the only occasion when he had really talked of his late wife to Blanche Farrow, "was her helplessness, and, yes, a kind of simplicity."
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