But Jack would not hear of this arrangement; so Philip himself went back to his bed and his dreams, while Jack sat on by the dying fire, sleep coming once more, even to him, at last.

Before the two descended to breakfast the next morning, it was agreed between them that nothing more should be said concerning the mystery of the night. Whatever poor Jack may have done, his friend did not let the night’s events or their solution interfere in any way with his appetite for breakfast, or with his enjoyment of the walk after it to the church by the side of his newly-discovered princess. For him the fairy tale was going on still, and Jack and his troubles had, for the time, no place in it.

It was not the pleasantest of wintry days. The sky promised more snow, and a cutting north wind drove the stray flakes that were already falling into the faces of the Manor party like bits of veritable ice, till poor Flop’s nose threatened to leave her face altogether. But to Philip Carlyon the day was perfect, and the blasts of north wind might have been zephyrs from Paradise itself. Miss Layford, too, looked warm and smiling, but that might have been only the reflection of her companion’s face—at times, it must be confessed, rather near to hers. There was the Squire, beaming and cheery, surrounded by his laughing, chatting ones. Miss Dormer, too, was bright and cheerful; so, perhaps, it was only poor Jack who really felt what an unpleasant day it was. “The sort of weather one would like to kick, by Jove!” growled Jack. But even Jack thawed into a happier frame of mind under Miss Dormer’s care. Besides, returning, the wind was no longer in their faces, and it was decidedly pleasanter.

Philip Carlyon and Margaret, dropping behind, soon lost sight of the rest of the party; and when next a turn of the road brought them again to view, they saw that Jack and Miss Dormer had detached themselves from the rest, and were walking briskly on ahead. At the sight all Philip’s misgivings touching the little governess and his friend came back to him. In his own happiness poor foolish Jack’s had been well-nigh overlooked altogether. Philip stole an inquiring glance at the face by his side; he saw quite enough to know that he need not be afraid to speak.

“How long has this been going on?”

Margaret knew what this meant, and answered at once.

“I can’t say—not exactly, that is—but it has never been as bad as this before. O Phil, can’t you save him?” and Margaret’s soft brown eyes, with the bright tear-drops in them, were lifted beseechingly to her companion’s face.

What man, so adjured, would not have pledged himself to an even less-hopeful task? Of course Phil promised.

“You remember our charade last night? It shall be ‘checkmate’ with my lady yet; never fear.”

“Poor dear Jack, only fancy his marrying that dreadful woman!”

“She must go,” said Phil; “that’s settled. By the way, that reminds me to ask why she is not away for her holidays, like other people?”

“She always says she has nowhere to go.”

“Humph! I’m afraid we must trouble her to find somewhere.”

They were in sight of the house now, and Philip Carlyon stopped.

“Wait a moment, Margaret,” he said; “you know who I am going to see this morning, and what I am going to say; you don’t repent?”

“Repent! O Phil!”

She said nothing more; but Mr. Philip Carlyon appeared to be more than satisfied.

CHAPTER III

Coming out from the library some half-hour later, Philip Carlyon stumbled on, or rather was stumbled upon by, the inevitable Flop, and a shower of miscellaneous articles—books, a drawing-board, paint-pencils, and so forth—were incontinently delivered at his feet.

“Dear me!” bleated poor Flop, when the din had a little subsided, “how the things in this house do tumble about! And perhaps you’ve got corns, and that drawing-board is dreadfully sharp and heavy too; it nearly cut poor little Tiny’s head open the other day; she’d got right under it when I let it fall, you know—poor silly little dear!”

“Nearly as silly as I was,” said Philip, laughing. “I believe the confounded thing has all but taken my foot off.”

“Has it really, though? O dear, dear, I’m so sorry! And the paint-box—it’s one of those tin things—moist colours, you know—has cut my finger, I think, see!” and Flop thrust forth a bleeding digit to within an inch of Phil’s nose; for poor Flop, short of sight herself, laboured under the delusion that all her fellow-mortals were similarly afflicted.

“So it is!” cried Phil. “Here, let me wrap it up, poor thing!”

They were standing in one of the hall-windows, and Philip—poor Flop’s wounded hand in his—was making some laughing comment, when a shadow from outside fell upon them, and, looking up, there was Jack’s fair face, with the honest blue eyes opened to their utmost, staring at them in a kind of blank amaze.

“Come in!” cried Philip. “I want to speak to you.”

Jack, thus called upon, marched round to the great door, kicking off the snow from his boots as he went. Flop was gone, and Philip was standing by the hall-fire making a little pretence of warming himself as Jack entered.

“Well?” inquired Jack, the surprised stare not quite gone out of his blue eyes yet.

“The fact is, Jack, I’ve got something to say to you—something to tell you. Can’t you guess within a little what it’s about, old fellow?”

But Jack only stared still more, and shook his head.

“I think you could guess if you liked, Jack; but if you won’t, why I suppose I must tell you. I have asked your sister, and—she is going to take me for better for worse—there!”

The stare of amazement on Jack’s face had been as nothing compared to that which it now wore. For the best part of a minute Jack seemed, in his astonishment, utterly speechless. At the end of that time he had managed to recover himself sufficiently to utter the one word, “Flop!” It was really not so very surprising when you consider the little picture Jack had looked upon a moment since from the great hall-window; and yet Phil found something so irresistibly comic in the idea, that he burst into one of his roars, to poor Jack’s still greater mystification.

“Flop’s one of the best souls going,” said Phil, when he had sufficiently recovered himself to attempt an explanation; “but it isn’t Flop; and not being Flop, my dear Jack, and Tiny not looking upon me in quite the favourable light that I could wish—why, it’s Margaret!”

The old uneasiness, all that has so puzzled him in his friend Jack—but laid aside in these later hours—flashed back upon Philip Carlyon the moment Margaret’s name had left his lips. A white face fronted him, but it was only for a moment; the next it was buried in Jack’s sturdy arms upon the old carved mantleshelf before him.

“Jack, Jack, what is it? For heaven’s sake, speak, man!”

But Jack neither spoke nor moved.

“There’s a mystery somewhere,” cried Philip desperately; “I’ve felt it all along; I saw it the first day I came; what is it, old man? Jack, dear old Jack, what is it?”

At the touch of Phil’s hand, at the sound of his troubled voice, poor Jack lifted his face. With a great effort he looked straight at Philip, and put out one hand towards him.

“Phil,” he said, with a little attempt at a smile, “never mind me. I shall be all right in a minute or two. I see it all now. I thought you were trying to cut me out, old fellow, and got savage. I thought you knew—everybody does; I daresay I never told you; I took it for granted you knew—Margaret is my cousin. She has always lived here, one of us, and I have been fool enough to fancy she always might; that is all, that is the grand mystery, Phil. I have been a fool!” and poor Jack tried a laugh that was more dreary even than the smile had been.

“If I had only known,” Philip began.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference. I see it now; she could never have cared for me, Phil; don’t say any more about it. I must get over it as best I can.”

“Come for a walk,” said Philip; “there’s nothing like a good stretch; try it, old fellow!”

“Not with you, Phil; let me go by myself. I shall turn up again at dinner; and,” these were Jack’s parting words at the open door, “whatever you do, don’t trouble yourself about—about this, you know, Phil; I shall be all right.”

Philip Carlyon stood watching poor Jack’s big figure striding over the snow; he stood looking out over the white stretch of lawn and meadow long after the lonely figure had vanished from the scene. He was going over in his own mind the events of these past few days. The grand tangle of it all—poor Jack’s irritation, little Tiny’s simple speech, even the ghost mystery itself,—all lay unravelled at Philip Carlyon’s finger-ends. Margaret Layford not Jack’s sister, but his cousin; what was there that the simple fact did not explain? There was one thing now quite clear to Philip’s mind: if that small Macchiavelli, Miss Dormer, got hold of poor miserable Jack in his present frame of mind, the checkmate Phil had so glibly promised himself and Margaret would not be so easy of accomplishment. One result of his cogitations was, that Philip decided to take Miss Layford into his confidence with regard to the little affair of the previous night. A walk after luncheon was easily arranged, and then Margaret learned the whole story.

“Jack was his poor mother’s favourite,” she said. “Miss Dormer, I suppose, has managed to learn so much; our conversation of last evening must have suggested to her scheming little brain the idea of making the use of the knowledge she has done.”

“And will do again, depend upon it,” rejoined Philip. “Meanwhile not a word of our engagement, nor of our suspicions of herself; of the latter not a hint even to Jack. I shall change rooms with him to-night; and I think I may venture to say that, for the future, we shall find our friend the ghost tolerably well laid.”

So it was arranged. Jack appeared at the dinner-table in decidedly higher spirits than was customary even with him. As for the little governess, it was just as Philip had predicted. The great stupid fly was hers past all doubt; and as the evening wore on, there was a flash of triumph in the dark eyes that their owner was scarcely at pains to conceal.

“Patience!” whispered Philip, as he pressed Margaret’s hand at parting, and saw the anxious glances she was casting towards her cousin and Miss Dormer, who were also saying good-night at the farther end of the great drawing-room—“patience; it will be our turn soon!”

“But if she should—O Phil!”

“But she sha’n’t; she shall marry me first—there!”

Whereupon Margaret laughed, and going her way, with Miss Dormer following her, left the coast clear to the two young men. Jack came up to the fireplace, where his friend Philip stood, looking rather foolish—feeling even more foolish than he looked, if the truth were told. Philip made way for him, but said nothing.

“Can you do nothing but stare at a fellow?” growled Jack at length; “if you must stare at somebody, there’s the glass!”

“Thank you, my dear Jack,” returned Philip blandly; “I don’t doubt the sight would be charming; but just at this present moment I am wanting to look at the biggest, blindest”—and here Phil was speaking in the biggest capitals—“dearest, blundering young fool the World ever turned out; and she has done pretty well in that way.”

Jack was for a moment inclined to be very wrathful, but the glamour of the day was falling from him—as also of the champagne at dinner—and he was by this time almost, if not quite, like the possessed of old, “in his right mind,” which for the last few hours or so he most certainly had not been.

“Phil,” he said sadly, “I know you would help me if you could, and so would Margaret; but it’s too late.”

“Don’t tell me it’s gone so far as that,” cried Phil savagely.

Jack’s face grew very red.

“It’s gone so far, that, in honour—”

“Honour—bah!” echoed his companion contemptuously. “But there, go to bed, go to bed, and pray Heaven to help the greatest fool ever made;” which was a mistake of Phil’s; for Heaven had had nothing to do with it, as he ought to have known.

“You’re going to my room, you know!” he called out, as Jack moved off.

“I know!” Jack made answer dismally.

All the ghosts in the universe would have been welcome to him beside this new horror he had been at such pains to raise.

When, some quarter of an hour after, Philip Carlyon followed his friend to the room he had made over to him for the night, he found Jack still dressed, seated upon the bed-side, one of the dreariest objects he had ever had the misfortune to gaze upon.

“Come, Jack,” cried he cheerily, “aren’t you going to bed to-night?”

But Jack was not to be cheered.

“Bed!” groaned the wretched young fellow; “what’s the good of bed, or anything else? I wish I was dead and buried.”

“I daresay you’ll be accommodated some day; so don’t let that distress you, unless you are in a very particular hurry and can’t afford to wait.”

“O Phil, old man, don’t chaff a fellow! I verily believe I’m the most miserable dog alive.”

“It’s well Miss Dormer does not hear you!” laughed the unsympathising Phil.

“Don’t mention her!” cried Jack, with a genuine shiver.

“I’ll tell you what it is, Jack,” said Philip, seating himself by his friend’s side; “if you’ll go to bed like a Christian, instead of sitting groaning there like an old woman at a prayer-meeting, I’ll do what I can to get you out of this hobble; and I think I see a way. But if you don’t—by Jove!” cried Philip threateningly, “the little governess shall marry you to-morrow if she likes. So now, good-night.”

Jack, another man in these last few seconds, started up.

“Do you really mean it, though? I’ll bless you for ever and a day!”

“You turn-in, then,” said Phil.

“All right!” said Jack; and Philip actually heard him whistling as he went his way to Jack’s late bedroom.

Here it appeared that our friend had taken care to provide himself with the various trifling necessaries for a comfortable night—for it was not his intention either to go to bed or to sleep, as you may suppose. His first move was to lock the door; having done which, he discovered with a smile that the key was brought into such a position that another applied from without would send it out softly upon the mat beneath. So far so good. Philip then doctored the fire, exchanged his coat for the more luxuriant folds of the most inviting of dressing-gowns, and lastly, after mixing himself a glass of something steaming and fragrant enough to have tempted even a ghost itself to become for the time mortal, sat himself down in his easy-chair, and with slippered feet upon the fender, set himself to read. Twelve, one, two, from the clock on the landing outside, and still Mr. Carlyon read on. Three. Mr. Carlyon closed his book, and seemed to listen. There was some little life in the fire still, and this he left burning. The candles he carefully extinguished; and then stretched himself upon the bed. It was not too soon; there was the the soft opening of a distant door, a scarcely audible footstep creeping cautiously towards his own, a halt on the mat outside, a moment’s breathing space. Then the key that was within the room fell, not noisily, but dulled by the soft carpeting, the lock was turned, the door crept slowly open, and then—enter ghost! Philip, waiting expectant as he was, felt himself giving an involuntary shiver. Prepared even to get some enjoyment out of the affair, Phil felt that he could for the moment realise just a something of what poor Jack’s feelings had been. But it must be allowed that this was only for a moment. With a smile that surely meant mischief, could the poor ghost but have seen it, Philip followed with his half-closed eyes the white-draperied one’s progress until the position between the window and the bed was gained. Yes, there it stood, just as Jack had described it; not tall certainly, but ghostly enough for twenty ghosts.

“Now for act the second,” said Phil to himself.

Act the second commenced by the utterance of Jack Layford’s name twice, thrice it may be, in the most sepulchral tones of which a rather soprano voice is capable. At the third call, the occupant of the bed showed signs of consciousness, as it was evidently necessary he should do if the play was to be properly carried out.

As Philip had calculated, the cue was taken. It was probably much the same oration as that to which the room’s owner of the previous night had been treated, and Philip Carlyon heard it politely to the end.

Suddenly through the room there rang a stifled cry, almost shriek, but it certainly did not proceed from Mr. Carlyon. That gentleman—polite, smiling—stood, one hand upon the fast-closed door, the other waving a courteous adieu to poor Jack’s terror, now white, appealing, frantic, all but at his feet. Her retreat thus cut off, Miss Dormer—for of course it was she—as the only thing left her to do, was down on her knees, imploring piteously for mercy at her captor’s hands. Alas, poor ghost! There was not much pretence of disguise or concealment now; the time for that was past.

“I will promise anything,” groaned the wretched little woman, “only let me go, dear Mr. Carlyon! I will leave the house to-morrow—to-night! I will never see John Layford again! Only let me go!”

Mr. Carlyon was not so terrible as he looked—and the firelight showed him awfully dark and stern to the miserable woman at his feet. “Get up, Miss Dormer!” he said authoritatively. “Don’t kneel there! You shall go, on your own terms—that is, you leave this place at once, and never see my friend Jack again. The Squire must of course know all; but it shall go no further. And now go.”

So, defeated, humbled, almost pitiable in her humiliation, the poor plotter slunk out.

“Check, I think,” said Phil, with a grim smile, as he once more closed the door, not taking the trouble this time to lock it.

And now what more is there to tell? At the breakfast-table that morning there was no Miss Dormer, but there was a clamour and babel of voices quite beyond all the endeavours of Flop to still; and when the two little robins came to be informed, in answer to their wondering inquiries, that Miss Dormer would be no more seen by them on that, or indeed any other, morning, however future, the tumult was redoubled. Little Tiny, for her part, at once arriving at the melancholy conclusion of Miss Dormer’s having unexpectedly deceased during the night—after the manner of a favourite canary about a month since—commenced a tributary howl to the memory of the departed, but suddenly stopped short—moved, possibly, by some flash of consolation concerning lessons that would not have to be said; and, changing her small mind altogether upon the subject, laughed instead, greatly to the comfort of all parties.

“That’s right,” cried Flop approvingly. “Of course we are all very sorry; but we aren’t going to cry, are we, Jack?”

Jack, very red, mumbled something about “girls” and “nonsense;” and Philip and Margaret were fain to hide their heads behind the great silver tea-urn.

After breakfast, and when the two were standing alone by the dining-room fire, talking together in the low-voiced happy way peculiar to young people in their situation, Jack came in equipped for a journey. There was a certain sad look in the young fellow’s eyes as they fell upon the two, but he went bravely up to where they stood and put out his hand. “Good-bye, Margey,” he said; “and good-bye to you, too, old fellow. I’m going back to town; but you needn’t follow yet. I shall be down at Easter, Meg; and I suppose,” said Jack, with a little smile, and laying a kindly hand on Phil Carlyon’s shoulder, “that I may bring with me the best friend I ever had.”