Explore "The Spiral Staircase" by Ethel Lina White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As Helen heard the name, she remembered the gossip in the kitchen. Ceridwen was the pretty sluttish girl, who used to dust under Lady Warren's bed, and whose lovers waited for her, outside the house, with, the patient fixity of trees. She believed she had actually seen one of them in the plantation, whose vigil had certainly proved in vain.
"Rum thing," said Dr. Parry. "Williams says that when Captain Bean was coming home from market he lit a match to find the keyhole. That's how he chanced to see her--huddled up in a dark corner of his garden. He came, at once, hell-for-leather to the _Bull_, and asked Williams to ring my house. My housekeeper told them to try the Summit."