"
"The Ghost?" repeated Mrs. Lecount, clasping her hands in graceful
astonishment. "Dear madam, pardon me! Is there such a thing in the
world? Where did you see it? In Vauxhall Walk? Tell me--you are the
first lady I ever met with who has seen a ghost--pray tell me!"
Flattered by the position of importance which she had suddenly assumed
in the housekeeper's eyes, Mrs. Wragge entered at full length into the
narrative of her supernatural adventure. The breathless eagerness with
which Mrs. Lecount listened to her description of the specter's costume,
the specter's hurry on the stairs, and the specter's disappearance in
the bedroom; the extraordinary interest which Mrs. Lecount displayed
on hearing that the dress in the wardrobe was the very dress in which
Magdalen happened to be attired at the awful moment when the ghost
vanished, encouraged Mrs. Wragge to wade deeper and deeper into details,
and to involve herself in a confusion of collateral circumstances out of
which there seemed to be no prospect of her emerging for hours to come.
Faster and faster the inexorable minutes flew by; nearer and nearer came
the fatal moment of Mr. Bygrave's return.
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