A Haunted House

At the end of the short story, there is the discovery of what the ghosts look for. After searching the house and the gardens for something for which the story provides no name (only “it”) and then a “treasure” that is hidden somewhere, the ghosts arrive in a room and find a couple sleeping there. One of the members of the sleeping couple is the narrator and the other is an unnamed person. There, bending over the sleeping couple, the ghostly couple has a conversation that reveals the nature of the “treasure” they were looking for. Sighing in a nostalgic tone, the male ghost says, “Long years—” to the female ghost and adds, “Again you found me” (5). The discovery of the love of a couple, which may be themselves at another time, is precisely what ghosts seem to be unable to feel after dying. They seem only capable of remembering what they went through centuries before, when they lived and loved each other. The narrator wakes up and cries out that they understand what the treasure was: the light of love. In a world of darkness, the light of a living love is what gives life to a ghostly existence.