“I hope he will ask me for my permission to pay his addresses,” said the Duke.

“It is not necessary,” said Alice sweetly. “You forget. You arranged for that decision to be mine alone.”

“You must be guided by me…”

Alice was tired and her emotions were mixed and jumbled. He did not want her. Then why was he nagging her in this way?

“Oh, leave life to the living,” she said petulantly.

There was a stunned silence while they stared at each other.

Somewhere, far in the distance, a cock crowed.

He began to shimmer and fade.

Alice wordlessly stretched out her arms to him, a look of intense pleading in her face.

Then he was gone.

She forced herself to think of Sir Peregrine, but somehow could not even visualize his features.

There was a timid scratching at the doors and Miss Fadden crept in, still in her opera gown. “I came to help you to bed, my lady, now that your uncle has gone.”

“And how should you imagine my uncle has gone?” asked Alice sharply.

“Why, because ’tis dawn, my lady,” said Miss Fadden. “Now, you are quite worn to the bone, I can see. Cassandra shall tuck you into bed, my lady, and bring you a posset.”

Alice wanted to ask the companion what she had meant. Why did Miss Fadden not assume that Uncle Gervase had simply retired to bed? But, of course, that is what she had meant. She could not mean anything else.

It was some weeks later and the Duke was again closeted with his memoirs at Wadham. He had not returned to see Alice. He had washed his hands of the ungrateful minx. The living Duke and Duchess and the horrible Bessant were back in residence. Sometimes the ghost remembered that he had not warned Alice against Bessant’s curiosity, but he shrugged it off. He would not admit to himself that Alice had hurt him deeply.

His window was open to the early autumn evening and sounds of music filtered up in the still air. The Duke and Duchess were entertaining again.

The ghost had just finished shaving his head. He had then donned his wig and his original silks and lace and felt much more cheerful than he had done in some time.

He eyed the sheets of quarto lying on the table and then found himself looking up into the mindless, vague eyes of his wife. He studied the portrait with some irritation. He had never liked Agnes, he decided, and he did not even want her painted image now.

With one impatient move, he pulled forward a chair, and standing on it, lifted the portrait down from the wall.