There was a moist, depressing smell of earth after long-continued rains, in the garden.

No wonder the place had been to let at a bargain, for a long term! There had been a murder in it once, and it had stood empty for twelve or thirteen of the fifteen years since the almost forgotten tragedy.

I had been the tenant for two years now--before I became a "star," with a theatre of my own in Paris.

I had had no fear of the ghost said to haunt the house.

Indeed, I remembered thinking, and saying, that the story only made the place more interesting.