"It is all very well to make a laughing matter of it," said my wife seriously. "I will ask Mr. Millet this plain question. He may say, like you, that it is all fancy; but pray how does he account for the opening of a locked door?"
"I told you," I interposed before Bob could speak, "that I must have been mistaken in supposing I had locked it."
"Very good. But the door was shut if it was not locked."
"I told you that, too," I replied. "The wind."
"The wind from the window through the broken panes."
She turned to Bob triumphantly. "What do you think of that, Mr. Millet? When we go into the room the door slams, and my husband says it slams because of the wind through the window. I accept that as reasonable, but is it reasonable to suppose that the same wind that blows a door shut from the inside of a room should blow it open from the outside?"
"Well, no," said Bob, with a sly look at me; "I should say it was not reasonable."
I was fairly caught. My wife's logic was too much for me.
"And now," said she, "as I know it will worry him if I go on talking about it, I will leave you two gentlemen together while I go and look after some affairs. You will spend the evening with us, Mr. Millet?"
"And I beg your pardon," she said, "for having misjudged you. I did think that you and my husband were in a plot together to set me against the house, and I did not think it was nice behavior in a gentleman who was paying me his first visit. I told my husband as much last night before we went to sleep, and he stood up for you like the true friend he is; and now I am glad to say I have found out my mistake. I hope you will forgive me.
"There is nothing to forgive," said Bob, in the kindest and gentlest tone imaginable. "All that you have said and thought and done was most fair and reasonable, and I ought to be thankful for the little misunderstanding, if it has given you a better opinion of me."
"A sensible woman," said Bob, gazing after my wife; and then, in a more serious tone, "Ned, is it all true?"
"Yes, about the phantom of the girl. Frightfully, horribly true!"
"I did; and I would swear it was no trick of imagination."
"And the door opened, as your wife has described?"
"It did, and I will swear that _that_ was no trick of the imagination."