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"Long did our host, Sir Charles, and I sit over the dessert table, after the ladies had left us, filling and refilling our glasses; and it was close on ten before we repaired to the drawing-room. "'Lady Kirlby, I said, seating myself next her on a divan, 'I want to hear about the ghost.
"Lady Kirlby gave me a pitying look, but it was of no avail; the word of our hostess was paramount, and I did not learn what was in store for me until it was too late to retreat. At half-past eleven William Achrow turned out the gas, and when we were all seated round the fire, he suggested we should each relate in turn, the most thrilling ghost tale we had ever heard.
"'I am sure, he said, amid a roar of the most unfeeling laughter, in which all but the tender-hearted Lady Kirlby joined, 'that your nerves are now in the most suitable state for psychical investigation, and that it won't be your fault if you don't see the ghost. And a very horrible one it is, at least so I am told, though I cannot say I have ever seen it myself. No!
William, however, informs me that there is a ghost here he has, of course, told you. "But at this very psychological moment Mrs Achrow interrupted: 'Now, no secrets, you two, she said laughingly, leaning over the back of the divan and tapping Lady Kirlby playfully on the arm. 'There must be no mention of ghosts till it is close on bedtime, and the lights are low.
"'When I tell you that Sir Charles and Lady Kirlby are coming, and that we can offer you something startling in the way of a ghost, you will, I know, need no further inducement to join our party. Yours, etc., "Achrow was a cunning fellow; he knew I would go a thousand miles to meet the Kirlbys, who had been my greatest friends in Ireland, and that ghosts invariably drew me like magnets.
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