She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing. But
it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.
'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this
thing--the tomb--the epitaph. I think I would 'av none--no, no epitaph. We
regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the
folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down
there is what you call haunt, my dear?'
'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of
Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place! and
so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here--is not so? How high and
thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.'
And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see something
unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I were
once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering round
me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself.
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