Read the story and answer the questions with full sentences. Whatever hour you woke there was a door shutting. From room to

room they went, hand in hand, lifting here, opening there, making

sure—a ghostly couple.

“Here we left it,” she said. And he added, “Oh, but here too!” “It’s

upstairs,” she murmured. “And in the garden,” he whispered

“Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”

But it wasn’t that you woke us. Oh, no.
“They’re looking for it; they’re drawing the curtain,” one might say,

and so read on a page or two. “Now they’ve found it,” one would be

certain, stopping the pencil on the margin. And then, tired of

reading, one might rise and see for oneself, the house all empty, the

doors standing open, only the wood pigeons bubbling with content

and the hum of the threshing machine sounding from the farm.
“What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands

were empty. “Perhaps it’s upstairs then?” The apples were in the

loft. And so down again, the garden still as ever, only the book had

slipped into the grass.

But they had found it in the drawing room. Not that one could ever

see them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses; all

the leaves were green in the glass. If they moved in the drawing

room, the apple only turned its yellow side.
Yet, the moment after, if the door was opened, spread about the

floor, hung upon the walls, pendant from the ceiling—what? My

hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet; from

the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of

sound. “Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat softly. “The

treasure buried; the room . . . ” the pulse stopped short. Oh, was

that the buried treasure?
A moment later the light had faded. Out in the garden then? But the

trees spun darkness for a wandering beam of sun. So fine, so rare,

coolly sunk beneath the surface the beam I sought always burnt

behind the glass. Death was the glass; death was between us;

coming to the woman first, hundreds of years ago, leaving the house,

sealing all the windows; the rooms were darkened.
He left it, left her, went North, went East, saw the stars turned in the

Southern sky; sought the house, found it dropped beneath the

Downs.

“Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly. “The Treasure

yours.”

The wind roars up the avenue. Trees stoop and bend this way and

that. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of

the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still.
Wandering through the house, opening the windows, whispering not

to wake us, the ghostly couple seek their joy.

“Here we slept,” she says. And he adds, “Kisses without number.”

“Waking in the morning—” “Silver between the trees—” “Upstairs—”

“In the garden—” “When summer came—” “In winter snowtime—”

The doors go shutting far in the distance, gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
Nearer they come; cease at the doorway. The wind falls, the rain

slides silver down the glass. Our eyes darken; we hear no steps

beside us; we see no lady spread her ghostly cloak. His hands shield

the lantern. “Look,” he breathes. “Sound asleep. Love upon their

lips.”

Stooping, holding their silver lamp above us, long they look and

deeply. Long they pause. The wind drives straightly; the flame stoops

slightly.

Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall, and, meeting,

stain the faces bent; the faces pondering; the faces that search the

sleepers and seek their hidden joy.

“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly. “Long years—

” he sighs. “Again you found me.” “Here,” she murmurs, “sleeping; in

the garden reading; laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left

our treasure—” Stooping, their light lifts the lids upon my eyes.
“Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly.

Waking, I cry “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”

1. How did the story make you feel?

2.Which statement do you agree with and why?

A. The story creates an eerie and mysterious

atmosphere.
B. The sleeping couple are never able to see

the ghosts
C. The ghostly couple seems harmless.
D. The house seemed to have thoughts and a voice of it's own.

PLEASE BE QUICKK

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