Now the Hall was said to be haunted by the ghost of the Eighth Duke who had broken his neck in a hunting accident around the year 1751. The next Duke, the Ninth, had been as much a tyrant as the present one and he had died of apoplexy in 1789 and nothing in his life had become him like the leaving of it. He had no direct heir and so the dukedom and the title and all, had gone to a distant relative, now the present Duke, who was supposed to bear a marked likeness to the Eighth, being handsome in a haughty and arrogant way.

But there, evidently, the resemblance ceased. For the Eighth Duke had been a wastrel and rakehell, but had had a reputation for having been kind and generous to his servants. He had also been a tremendous ladies’ man. The present Duke was married to a chilly, high-nosed wife who suited him very well. He was nasty to his servants, but had never seen the inside of a gambling hell or got up to any of the wild antics of his ancestor.

There had been stories in the kitchen that the Eighth Duke still walked the empty corridors of the Hall at night, but Alice somehow was not afraid of meeting a ghost. The horrors of the present world were terrifying enough without starting to be frightened of some poor spirit who probably did not exist anyway.

She timidly pushed open the door of the great hall and stood looking about her in awe. Mellow gold stone seemed to stretch for miles in front of her, lit by the light of one oil lamp placed on a carved oak chest. Tapestries hung silently against the walls, their figures of huntsmen and hounds seeming almost alive in the dim, golden light. A great, carved flight of stone stairs led up from the great hall to the staterooms on the second floor.

Alice felt no fear. It was as if she had passed beyond that state into a kind of limbo where nothing in the outside world could touch her. Her bare feet making no sound on the stone flags, she moved lightly across the hall and mounted the stairs.

Very gently she pushed open the door of the banqueting hall and slipped inside. The huge room was brightly lit by shafts of moonlight streaming in the windows. The walls were decorated with a moulded and painted plaster frieze showing Diana and the animals of the forest. The figures had many bright painted eyes which seemed to follow the progress of the little scullery maid across the room.

Unlike the other rooms of the Hall, this one had only one portrait. It was hung between the windows. Alice pulled out a great carved chair at the end of the banqueting table and looked down the hall to the portrait.