Had John Musgrave been more experienced in the ways of the world he would have given the explanation first and then have preferred his request, having disarmed suspicion in advance. But Mr Musgrave was so concerned with the necessity for secrecy and dispatch that he lost sight altogether of certain aspects of the case which would have struck anyone less simple of purpose; which did, in fact, strike the vicar, in whose mind the picture of John Musgrave accompanying Miss Annersley and Diogenes on their walk was still sufficiently vivid to predispose his thoughts towards speculations which John Musgrave would never have dreamed of.

The purpose of Mr Musgrave's communication to Miss Annersley was to warn her of the escape of Diogenes, who had broken bounds when Mr Musgrave, having freed him from the chain, imagined him to be following him as usual into the house. Without a doubt Diogenes would return to the Hall. The note was to warn Peggy of his possible appearance.

"It would seem," observed Mr Errol with a quiet laugh, "that it is impossible to have Miss Annersley and Diogenes both in Moresby and keep them apart. I should advise you to confer together, John, and come to some better arrangement. Otherwise it looks as though you will have trouble."

"I do not mind the trouble," replied Mr Musgrave seriously. "But I should like Miss Annersley to be prepared. It might prove embarrassing for her if Diogenes suddenly revealed himself to her aunt. I don't fancy Mrs Chadwick would be deceived."

"I think it highly improbable," the vicar agreed.

He turned the note which Mr Musgrave had delivered to him on his palm, and seemed to weigh it while he scrutinised the writer, weighing other matters in his mind with equal deliberation.

"I'll see to this. Miss Annersley shall have it. I'm expecting Robert every minute--he should be here now. When he comes I will send him up to the Hall straight away. You need not fear to trust its safe delivery to Robert; he will take very good care that it reaches no hand but the right one."

And thus it transpired that Robert, who generally officiated in all the more important events in the lives and after the lives of the inhabitants of Moresby, became mixed up in the affairs of Mr Musgrave; though when he received the letter from the hand of his vicar, with the latter's careful and explicit instructions, Robert had no idea that he was acting as secret agent between Mr John Musgrave and the young lady at the Hall. He cherished, indeed, a dark suspicion that Mr Errol was corresponding with the young lady, and was unmindful that his wife should know it. For the first time since they had worked together the sexton entertained grave doubts of his vicar, and while he pursued his leisurely way to the Hall in the deepening dusk of advancing night he recalled the story of the strong man with the shorn locks and the woman whose beauty had robbed him of his strength. Robert held Samson in as great contempt as he held Saint Paul in veneration. It was a relief to him to reflect that the vicar wore his hair clipped close to his head.

Robert, while he walked to the Hall, engaged in a pleasant reverie of his own in which a prospective reward for his services figured prominently. A young lady receiving a _billet doux_--Robert did not call it thus, being no sympathiser with foreign languages--would naturally reward the messenger. Since he carried in his pocket a shilling which John Musgrave had left with the note, these, reflections savoured of a mercenary spirit; but payment in advance is rather an earnest of good-will than a reward for service; the discharge of the obligation should undoubtedly follow the faithful discharge of the duty.

As an earnest of good-will on his side Robert halted at the village inn and wasted more valuable time there than Mr Musgrave would have approved of in consideration of the urgent nature of his message. When eventually Robert proceeded on his way the shadows had gathered with sufficient density to turn his thoughts into the less pleasing direction of the misty horrors associated with the Hall, which in the broad light of day he was wont to deride.

Thinking of these things against his volition, he quickened his steps; and it was possibly due to the rapidity of his pace and not to extreme nervousness that, in passing under the dense overbranching elm-trees in the drive, which entirely excluded the last faint glimmering of light, the perspiration started on his forehead in large beads and a curious thrill ran down his spine. It was not until he came within view of the house that these uncomfortable symptoms of over-exertion abated somewhat, and he was complacently comparing his masculine temerity with Hannah's foolish feminine fears of ghosts and such things, when abruptly something, unearthly of shape and terrible in appearance, started up out of the shadows and dashed past him, nearly upsetting him in its furious charge, and disappearing again in the shelter of the trees.

With a yell, more terrifying than any ghostly apparition, Robert started to run, and ran on, passing Mr Chadwick, who, cigar in mouth, was taking an evening stroll, and whom the sexton in his alarm mistook for the Evil One, emitting fire from his mouth. And while Mr Chadwick turned to stare after the amazing sight of the little man running for dear life, and while Diogenes, having hunted an imaginary night-bird, returned more leisurely to the drive and joined Mr Chadwick in his walk, Robert gained the house, gained admittance by the back door, and frightened the Hall servants badly with his blood-curdling description of the horrors he had encountered on the way. It was the cook's firm conviction, and nothing Robert found to say in expostulation could shake her belief, that he had been drinking.

"If you aren't drunk," she announced in conclusion, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself. A grown man to be scared out of his wits by a ghost!"

So unreasonable is feminine logic!

It took Robert some little while to collect his scattered thoughts sufficiently to be able to state the business that brought him there.

Had it not been for a glass of wine which a sympathetic parlourmaid brought him, and held for him while he drank, he might not even then have remembered the note in his pocket, and the vicar's explicit instructions that he was to hand it to Miss Annersley himself. His insistent demand to see the young lady confirmed the cook in her opinion of him; but the sympathetic parlourmaid undertook to acquaint Miss Annersley with the news of his presence and his wish to see her, and finally Robert was conducted to a room which was known as the library, where Peggy, a shining white figure against the dusky background of book-lined walls, received him, with manifest wonder in her grey eyes--a wonder which changed by imperceptible degrees to amusement as, having received and read her note, she listened to Robert's eloquent tale of the misty sort of thing which had risen out of the ground at his feet, had almost knocked him over, and had then vanished into the ground again.

"And you weren't afraid?" said Peggy, her hand resting on the writing-table beside which she stood, her admiring gaze on Robert's ashen face. "But that's splendid. I wish I were as brave as you. If I had been nearly knocked down by a misty sort of thing I should never be able to pass the spot again. Yet you'll go back presently, and won't mind in the least. That's real courage."

Robert looked uncomfortable. He wished she had not reminded him of the return journey. He felt far from happy when he thought of it; far from confident that he dared pass the spot again. He had it in his mind to invite the sympathetic parlourmaid to accompany him.

"Are you quite sure it was a ghost?" Peggy asked suddenly. "I don't see how a misty sort of thing could knock anyone down. Wasn't it, perhaps, a dog?"

Robert felt offended, and showed it.

"I reckon I knows a dog when I sees one," he replied with dignity, "an'

I reckon I knows a ghost. Hannah always allows she seen the ghost in the elm avenue, and it was in the avenue as I seed it. Big, it was--big as a elephant, and misty like. There was two of 'em."

"Two?" said Peggy, with a questioning intonation. "That's strange, Robert, because there are supposed to be two ghosts--a lady and a dog.

Are you quite sure there wasn't a dog, after all?"

"There mid 'a' been a dog," Robert conceded reluctantly. "But it warn't like a human dog, nohow. Its eyes was like flames, an' it didn' seem to 'ave any legs, seemed to move wi'out touching of the ground. Why not come an' see for yourself?" he suggested cunningly, "if you don't believe me. I'll take care of 'ee."

Peggy looked thoughtfully at the trembling sexton and appeared to deliberate. It was plain to her that Robert was badly shaken, that his nerve was not equal to the strain of making the return journey alone.

She was shrewd enough to penetrate his design in suggesting that she should accompany him, and being of a naturally kindly disposition she fell in with the idea, the more readily because, since reading the note, she was anxious to meet Robert's ghost, and secure it.

"I don't disbelieve you," she returned. "But I should like to see for myself. I should never feel afraid with you."

So subtle was this flattery and so seemingly sincere, that Robert unconsciously assumed the courageous bearing expected of him; and, when Miss Annersley led him out through a side door into the grounds, he drew himself up and expanded his chest, and bade her keep close to him and he would see she came to no harm. Peggy laughed softly as she drew nearer to him, and the contact of the tall slender figure afforded Robert that comfortable sense of human companionship which helps to minimise the unknown terrors of the dark, even a darkness peopled with misty apparitions. He began to believe quite firmly in his intrepidity.

At the entrance to the avenue they encountered Mr Chadwick; and for a moment it seemed as though Robert's vaunted courage would desert him, as Diogenes bounded forward out of the gloom and sprang excitedly upon Peggy, greeting her with an effusiveness which, with her uncle looking on, Peggy found secretly embarrassing.

"Is this your ghost?" she asked, glancing up at Robert, while she attempted to restrain the dog, which, in the first moments of joyful recognition, was an impossibility. "I begin to believe we are about to solve the mystery."

Robert drew his squat figure up to its full height, which was insignificant enough, and eyed her with contemptuous disapproval.

"Be that hanimal as big as a elephant?" he asked. "Be 'e misty like?

Would you say, now, that 'e could move wi'out walking, or that 'e shot flames from his eyes? Would you, now?"

"No," Peggy answered. "I don't think he tallies with that description."

"Then 'ow can thicky be wot I seed?"

"True," she mused. "Plainly it wasn't Diogenes. We'll walk on, I think, and look for your ghost."

Peggy was anxious to walk on. Mr Chadwick was advancing towards them and she was not prepared just then for an encounter. She waved a hand to him.

"I am going to the gate with Robert," she called to him, "to look for spooks. You can come to meet me, to see that I am not carried away on a broomstick."

Robert did not approve of the levity of her manner. He felt, indeed, so resentful as he hurried along the avenue at her side, with Diogenes in attendance, that he was doubly relieved when they reached the lodge gates without any further supernatural visitation, the absence of which he attributed, he informed her, to the presence of the dog. But the transfer of half a crown from Peggy's slim hand to Robert's horny palm softened his resentment sufficiently to allow him to wish her a friendly good-night, and to further express the hope that "nothing dreadful" met her on the way back.

Nothing more dreadful than Mr Chadwick awaited her in the elm avenue; but Peggy at the moment would almost as soon have encountered a ghost as her uncle; a ghost, at least, would not have asked awkward questions.

"What did Robert want?" Mr Chadwick inquired.

"He came with a message--for me."

"What about?"

"A private message," Peggy replied.

"Oh?" he said. He threw away his cigar and linked an arm within Peggy's. "I thought he might have come to fetch Musgrave's dog. That animal seems pretty much at home here."

"Y-es," Peggy returned dubiously.

"I wonder if Musgrave would be inclined to sell him. I've half a mind to ask him."

"Oh, please don't do that!" Peggy said quickly.

"Why not?"

"I think--he wouldn't like it. He is so fond of the dog."

Will Chadwick laughed, and since his niece did not express any curiosity as to the cause of his amusement, he did not explain it. But he wondered why, when they changed the colour of Diogenes' coat, they had not taken the precaution to buy him a new collar. He had been interested that evening in inspecting the collar and reading his own name and address inscribed thereon.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.