The landlord had once been a seafaring man, and he was a bit superstitious.

Still, he was not willing to acknowledge that Frank had beheld something supernatural.

He would not deny its possibility, but repeated over and over his belief that ghosts always return to the place of the murder and to no other place, and that the repetition of the story would drive away his summer boarders.
"I tell him he was just dreaming," said Bart.
"Sure!" with a look of relief.

"Of course, he was dreaming.

There's been nobody in Glen Springs looking like the chap you describe, and I'm sure that nobody has been walking in that corridor, 'less it was burglars." So Frank went back to his room, accompanied by Bart.