” I don’t know. If he had gone downstairs I must have seen him. He could never have run down the stairs and across the hall in time. I can’t imagine how he went along the corridor so swiftly.”

” He must have gone into one of the rooms there. Did you look?”

” No.”

” You should have done.”

” Ruth appeared then.”

” And Luke came later,” said Hagar significantly.

” Did Luke appear to have been rushing about?”

“You suspect Luke?” I asked.

” I merely wonder. It must have been someone in the house, I suppose.

If the idea was to frighten you, it must have been either Ruth, Luke, Matthew or Sarah. Did you see them all? “

“Not Matthew, nor Sarah.”

“Ah!” I ” I cannot imagine either of them running about the house in the night dressed up as a monk.”

Simon leaned towards me. He said: ” The Rockwell family are all a little crazy about their traditions.” He smiled at Hagar. “Everyone,” he added. ” I wouldn’t trust any one of them where the old Revels is concerned, and that’s a fact. They’re living in the past half of the time. Who could help it in that old fortress? It’s not a house. It’s a mausoleum. Anyone who lives there for any length of time is likely to gel strange ideas.”

” And you think I have!”

” Not you. You’re not a Rockwell simply because you married one. You’re a forthright Yorkshire woman who’ll blow a blast of common sense into the stuffy old place. You know what happens to the dead when they are exposed to fresh air, don’t you? They moulder and crumble away.“

” I’m glad you don’t think I imagined all this, because that is what they are all trying to pretend I did. They call it a nightmare.”

” Naturally the trickster would want that put about.”

” I shall pretend for him next time.”

” He won’t play the same game twice. You can be sure of that.”

“He won’t get an opportunity to. I intend to lock my doors tonight.”

” But he may try something else,” warned Simon.

” I’m ready for tea,” said Hagar. ” Ring for Dawson, and the three of us will have it together. Then, Simon, you musl drive Catherine back to the Revels. She walked one way, and there and back is too far.”

The tea was brought and once again I presided over the teacups.

I was feeling almost normal now; the comfort I drew from these two astonished and delighted me. They believed in me; they refused to treat me as a hysterical subject; and that was wonderful.

I wanted that tea-time hour to go on and on.

Hagar said as she stirred her tea: “I remember once Matthew played a trick on me. Strangely enough he came into my bedroom. Really, it must have been something like your affair. I had my curtains drawn about the bed. It was mid-winter, I remember…. Christmas-time. The snow was deep outside and the east wind was driving a buzzard. We had a few people in the house … those who had arrived before the bad weather started. We thought they would have to stay with us well beyond the Christmas holidays unless there was a thaw. We children had been allowed to watch the ball from the minstrels’ gallery. It was a wonderful sight… the dresses and the decorations. Well, that wasn’t the point. We children had had too much plum pudding, I dare say, because we grew rather quarrelsome … at least Matthew and I did.

Poor Sarah never joined in our quarrels. ” To get to the point, I had been discussing our ancestors and Matthew was wishing that he could wear those wonderful plumed hats and lace collars as they did in the days of the Cavaliers. I said: ” Like Sir John! Don’t say you want to be like him in the least little bit. ” But I do want to be exactly like Sir John,” Matthew said. I hate Sir John,” I cried. I like Sir John,” he answered. Then he twisted my arm and Ljnade his nose bleed.

I shouted that Sir John was a coward. “

She laughed and her eyes sparkled at the memory.

“You see, Catherine, Sir John was the master of Kirkland Revels at the time of the Civil War. Marston Moor had gone to Cromwell and Fairfax, and Prince Rupert was on the run. Sir John was naturally a Royalist and he went on declaring he’d hold the Revels against Cromwell or die in the attempt.

Never should the Revels pass out of the Rockwells* hands. But when the Parliamentarians came into Kirkland Moorside he disappeared . he and everyone in the house. Just imagine the soldiers coming into the Revels. They would have hanged him on one of his own oaks if they had found him. But he just disappeared. It’s been one of the mysteries of our house . how he and his household managed to disappear at the moment the Roundheads entered Kirkland Moorside. They took away all the valuables with them too. They were brought back after the Restoration. But I told Matthew that John was a coward because he did not stay and fight but walked out and calmly handed over the Revels to the enemy. Matthew didn’t agree with me. Anything would have done to quarrel about on that day. Sir John happened to be the cause. “

She stirred her tea thoughtfully and the haughtiness left her face as she looked back into the past.

Then she went on: ” And so Matthew decided to play a practical joke with me as his victim. I was awakened to see the curtains of my bed divided, and there was a. face drawn into a hideous scowl under a plumed hat. A voice hissed:

‘ So you are the one who dared call me a coward! You will regret that, Hagar Rockwell. I am Sir John and I’ve come to haunt you. ” I was startled out of my sleep and for a few seconds I really did think my careless words had brought our ancestor from the tomb. Then I recognised Matthew’s voice and I saw his hand clutching a candle. I leaped out of bed and grabbed the hat. I rammed it down on his head, boxed his ears, and threw him out of my room.”

She laughed again; then she looked at me apologetically. ” It reminded me, although it was really so different.”

“Where did he find the plumed hat?” I asked.

” There are lots of clothes put away in chests in the house. It was probably right out of period. I remember we were both put on bread and water and confined to our rooms for a day for disturbing our governess.”

“The difference is that you caught your intruder,” said Simon. ” I wish we could discover who this monk really is.”

” At least,” I put in,” I shall be on my guard for the future.”

Simon changed the subject and I found myself talking of the affairs of the neighbourhood: The home farm which was attached to the Grange and which he managed, and the smaller homesteads on the estate of which he would one day be the landlord. It was clear that he and Hagar felt deeply about the Kelly Grange estate, but in a different way from that worship of a house which I imagined obtained at the Revels. I had never heard the Rockwells discuss their tenants in the same way, and I was sure that Sir Matthew would not greatly care whether a man had been hurt when ploughing or that his wife was expecting a child again.

Hagar might look back on the traditions of the past but she had her keen eyes on the present. She might long to be mistress of the Revels and for Simon to be its master, but that did not mean she was indifferent to the Kelly Grange estate. Far from it. I believed that she would have liked to unite the two.

As for Simon he was so much the practical man; a house would never mean more to him than the stones of which it was built; the tradition in his opinion, I was sure, should be made to serve man, not man tradition.

There was so much about him that angered me, for I could never forget his hinting that I was a fortune-hunter, but on that day I needed his clear cold common sense, and I was grateful for it.

So those two gave me the strength and courage I badly needed. I knew that when I was alone in my room that night I should remember them and their belief in me, and it would help me to believe in myself.

He drove me back at five o’clock and, as I heard him drive off and turned to go into the house in which the first shadows of evening were beginning to fall, I, felt my courage begin to ebb.

But I kept thinking of those two and as I mounted the stairs to my room I did not once look over my shoulder to see if I was being followed, although I wanted to. Matthew, Luke and Ruth seemed to watch me rather furtively through dinner; as for Sarah, she had made no mention of the affair, which surprised me. I managed to appear quite normal.

After dinner Dr. Smith and Damaris called to take wine with us. I was sure that Ruth had sent for him, telling him what had happened, for when Damaris and Luke were whispering together, Ruth drew Sir Matthew aside Aunt Sarah had already retired and the doctor said to me: ” I hear there was a little trouble last night.”

” It was nothing,” I said quickly.

” Ah, you have recovered from it,” he said. ” Mrs. Grantiey thought she ought to tell me. I have made her promise, you know, to keep an eye on you.”

” There was no need to tell you this.”

“A nightmare, was it? That was what Mrs. Grantiey called it.”

” If it had been merely a nightmare I should not have left my room and awakened others. In my opinion it was not a nightmare.”

He glanced at the rest of the company and whispered:

” Could you tell me all about it?”

So once more that day I told the story.

He listened gravely, but made no comment.

“You may not sleep very well to-night,” he said.

” I think I shall.”

” Ah, you are a young lady of such sound good sense.”

” I propose to lock my doors so that there is no possibility of the joker’s coming into my room. Then I shall feel perfectly safe.”