"Why does it encourage you?"
"Because it strengthens a suspicion I felt when you gave me the letter to read."
"I suppose you had your reasons, Mr. Hartright, for concealing that suspicion from me till this moment?"
"I was afraid to encourage it in myself. I thought it was utterly preposterous—I distrusted it as the result of some perversity in my own imagination. But I can do so no longer. Not only the boy's own answers to your questions, but even a chance expression that dropped from the schoolmaster's lips in explaining his story, have forced the idea back into my mind. Events may yet prove that idea to be a delusion, Miss Halcombe; but the belief is strong in me, at this moment, that the fancied ghost in the churchyard, and the writer of the anonymous letter, are one and the same per
