Life at Broome reverted to its old monotonous groove after the death of Miss Letitia. At the funeral it was noticed by the few people who attended it that Miss Pengarvon never once lifted to her eyes the handkerchief which she carried in her hand, but her face was hidden by a thick crape veil, and no one could tell how far she might be otherwise affected. It is not the custom among families of the social rank of the Pengarvons for the female members to be present at the celebration of funeral obsequies, but Miss Barbara had always been a law unto herself, and that which she willed to do, she did. In the present instance, indeed, had she not chosen to follow the remains of her sister, there would have been no one to do so save the doctor who had attended her in her last illness, and the family solicitor, with--at a respectful distance and on foot--Barney Dale and his wife, who were mourners in the truest sense of the word.

As soon as Miss Pengarvon got back from the funeral, she shut herself up in the Green Parlor, and resumed her needle as if nothing had happened, and sat at work till far into the night, as though she were desirous of making up for lost time. But from that day forward her sister's empty chair was always placed over against her own on the opposite side of the little oval worktable, just as when Miss Letitia was alive; and as the autumn nights deepened into winter, Barney would sometimes hear his mistress talking aloud, as though there was someone with her in the room. She would ask questions, the answers to which were audible to no one but herself, or answer others which no one but herself had heard put. Sometimes it seemed to be Miss Letitia who was there with her, sometimes poor, lost Isabel, at others, that fine gentleman, Sir Jasper.

"It's all very uncanny, and I don't ken what to make of it," Barney would sometimes remark to his wife, with a slow, ruminating shake of the head--and uncanny indeed it was.

With Miss Pengarvon the love of hoarding had grown in intensity year by year, till it had become the ruling passion of her life. Now as always, her food was served up ceremoniously on some relics of the family plate, but it consisted only of the plainest and least expensive viands. With the passage of each year, the old house was becoming more ruinous and dilapidated; nothing in the way of repairs had been done to it since Sir Jasper's death. The whole of the rooms, with the exception of the three or four occupied by the sisters, and the kitchen and domestic offices, were locked and shuttered and left to dust, mildew, and decay. What remained of the park was rented by a farmer as pasturage for his cattle. In one corner of the garden Barney cultivated a few vegetables, just enough for home consumption, but further than that no hand ever touched the grounds or shrubberies, which, in the course of years, had degenerated into a veritable wilderness, not lacking in a certain wild, luxuriant beauty of their own during the spring and summer months, but unspeakably dreary when the leaves lay rotting and sodden on sad-eyed, still November afternoons, or when the chill December rains fell with dull, hopeless persistency, as over the deathbed of the passing year.

Early in January, Mrs. Dale died after a few hours' illness, and Barney had to send for one of his nieces, Lucy Grice by name, to fill her place. But the girl, after having been at Broome for a week, declared that she would sleep there no longer. The place was haunted, she averred. She had no objection to go there in the daytime and do what work might be required of her, but stay there after nightfall she would not.

Miss Pengarvon listened with a contemptuous stare while Barney explained the state of the case to her.

"The girl is a fool," she said curtly. "Of course the house is haunted, just as every house which has been inhabited by people who are dead, is haunted--no more and no less. You and she can arrange the matter between you as you think best."

Accordingly, the girl was allowed to go backward and forward, morning and evening, between her mother's cottage at Dritton and Broome.

A few weeks after the foregoing little episode had taken place, a stranger arrived one evening at the "King's Arms" Hotel, Stavering, where he ordered supper and a bed. He was a handsome, well-preserved man of sixty-five or thereabouts, and of semi-military appearance. Next morning, after breakfast, he expressed a wish to see the landlord, and was accordingly at once waited upon by that functionary, a man about the same age as the stranger.

"Pray, sit down," said the latter, indicating a chair; "that is, if you can spare me ten minutes of your company."

"Ten minutes! An hour, sir, if you wish it. Since the coaches were knocked off the road there ain't----But I needn't trouble you on that score, sir."

"May I ask whether you have lived in Stavering for any considerable number of years?"

"For half a century, sir; a little more or a little less."

"In that case, you have probably some knowledge of the existence of a family of the name of Pengarvon--the Pengarvons of Broome, I believe they are generally called in these parts."

"There are not many folks in Stavering or for miles round about but what have heard talk of the Pengarvons of Broome. A queer family, sir, very!"

"So I have been told," answered the stranger, dryly. "Who lives at Broome at the present time?"

"Miss Pengarvon, sir, a lady getting well on into years, eldest daughter of the late Sir Jasper Pengarvon--with whom the title died, there being no heir male in the family."

"Sir Jasper was twice married, was he not?"

"He was, sir. When he died he left two daughters by his first wife and one by his second."

"Just so. Now, as to the daughter by the second wife--she is still living, I presume?" He leaned forward a little as he put the question, and seemed to wait almost breathlessly for an answer.

"That is more than I can say, sir; more than anybody can say, I should imagine, unless it be Miss Pengarvon herself. Miss Isabel--that is the daughter of Sir Jasper's second marriage--ah, what a sweet young lady she was!--ran away, more than twenty years ago, with a gentleman who had been stopping for a couple of months at this very hotel before he and she disappeared. There was a fine ............