Madame Valenspin moved to one side of the road, and stood with her back resting against a gate. "Keep quite close to me," she said, "and I will try and go under control. Ah!" She ejaculated the last syllable so sharply that Brown and Mrs. de Roscovi both started. She then began to mumble something, and then, breaking into a shrill, high-pitched key, stated that she was no longer Madame Valenspin but a spirit called Anne Heathcote, who was her temporary control. Anne Heathcote, so the audience were informed, was the ghost of a girl of very great beauty, who had been murdered in an adjoining field, close on a hundred years ago. There was no apparent motive for the deed, which was accomplished in a peculiarly barbarous fashion, the head being cut right off and thrown in a pit that had long since been filled in. The criminal was never caught.
"Can't you appear to us with your head on," Brown asked, "just as you were in your lifetime?"
"No," the alleged spirit replied. "I am forbidden to do so. My visits are only periodical, and I shan't be able to materialise again here for at least ten years."
"Then there is little hope of my ever seeing you," Brown said, bitterly disappointed.
"But why should you haunt this place at all?" Mr. de Roscovi asked. "What reason is there for your being earth-bound?"
"My sins," the control replied. "I was a very wicked girl."
"I don't care whether you were wicked or not," Brown put in mournfully. "I want to see you. If your face is in keeping with your limbs and figure, it must indeed be lovely. Is there no way of seeing you--just for a second?"
"None," the control answered. Then, with much more emphasis, "None."
But hardly had the alleged Anne Heathcote spoken, when far away in the distance came the sound of footsteps. Tap, tap, tap!
"Why! By Jove!" Brown shouted, "there she is! I recognise her step. I should know it in a million."
For a minute everyone was silent, the tapping growing more and more audible. Then Madame Valenspin, in quite her own voice, exclaimed excitedly: "Let us be going. The spirits tell me we mustn't remain here any longer. Let's go back by the fields."
She fumbled with the latchet of the gate, against which she had been leaning, and hurriedly tried to raise it.