Even so, after he and Blanche Farrow turned away from the porch where they had been speeding the parting guest, she noticed that Varick looked more annoyed, more thoroughly put out, than she had ever seen him—and she had seen him through some rather bad moments in the long course of their friendship!

"I hope Bubbles won't try on any more of her thought-reading tomfoolery," he said disagreeably. "What happened last night has driven Mr. Burnaby away."

"I think you're wrong," said Blanche quickly. "I'm certain he received the letter of which he spoke."

"I don't agree with you"; and it was with difficulty that Varick restrained himself from telling her what he had overheard the unpleasant old man say to his niece.

"I think we shall get on all the better without him," said Blanche decidedly.

She vaguely resented the way in which Varick spoke of Bubbles. After all, the girl had come to Wyndfell Hall out of the purest good nature—in order to help them through with their party.

"Oh, well, I daresay you're right." (He couldn't afford to quarrel with Blanche.) "And I forgot one thing. I've heard from Panton—"

"You mean your doctor friend?" she said coldly.

"Yes, and he hopes to be here sooner than he thought he could be. He's a good chap, Blanche"—there came a note of real feeling into Varick's voice—"awfully hard-worked! I hope we'll be able to give him a good time."

"He'll have to sleep in the haunted room."

"That won't matter. He wouldn't believe in a ghost, even if he saw one! Be nice to him, for my sake; he was awfully good to me, Blanche."

And Blanche Farrow softened. There was a very good side to her friend Lionel. He was one of those rare human beings who are, in a moral sense, greatly benefited by prosperity. In old days, though his attractive, dominant personality had brought him much kindness, and even friendship, of a useful kind, his hand had always been, as Blanche Farrow knew well, more or less against every man. But now?—now he seemed to look at the world through rose-coloured glasses.

He glanced at the still very attractive woman standing by his side, his good-humour quite restored. "A penny for your thoughts!" he said jokingly.

Blanche shook her head, smiling. Not for very much more than a penny would she have told him the thought that had suddenly come, as such thoughts will do, into her mind. That thought was, how extraordinary had been Varick's transformation from what a censorious world might have called an unscrupulous adventurer into a generous man of position and substance—all owing to the fact that some two years ago he had drifted across an unknown woman in a foreign hotel!

Even to Blanche there was something pathetic in the thought of "poor Milly," whose birthplace and home this beautiful and strangely perfect old house had been. It was Milly—not that sinister figure that Pegler thought she had seen—whose form ought to haunt Wyndfell Hall. But there survived no trace, no trifling memento even, of the dead woman's evidently colourless personality.

And as if Varick had guessed part of what was passing through her mind, "Any news of the ghost, Blanche?" he asked jokingly. "How's my friend Pegler this morning?"

"Pegler's quite all right! I'm the person who ought to have seen the ghost—but of course I neither saw nor heard anything."

As they came through into the hall where the rest of the party were gathered together, Blanche heard Helen Brabazon exclaim: "This is a most wonderful old book, Mr. Varick! It gives such a curious account of a ghost who is supposed to haunt this house—the ghost of a most awfully wicked woman who killed her stepson by throwing him into the moat, and then drowned herself—"

Mr. Tapster, who seldom contributed anything worth hearing to the conversation, suddenly remarked: "The ghost has been seen within the last two days by one of the servants here."

"Who told you that?" asked Varick sharply.

"My valet; I always hear all the news from him."

Helen clapped her hands. "How splendid!" she cried. "That makes everything simply perfect!" She turned her eager, smiling face on Lionel Varick, "I've always longed to stay in a haunted house. I wish the ghost would appear to me!"

"Don't wish that, Miss Brabazon."

It was Sir Lyon's quiet voice which uttered those five words very gravely.

Sir Lyon liked Helen Brabazon. She was the only one of the party, with the exception of Bill Donnington, whom he did like. He was puzzled, however, by her apparent intimacy with their attractive host. How and where could Varick have come across the Burnabys and their niece? They had nothing in common with his usual associates and surroundings. In their several ways they were like beings from different planets.

Sir Lyon knew a great deal about Lionel Varick, though he had seen nothing of him during the few months Varick's married life had lasted. Like Miss Farrow, Sir Lyon was honestly glad that his present host, after turning some dangerous corners, had drifted, by an amazing series of lucky bumps, into so safe and pleasant a haven. There are certain people, who, when unsatisfied, and baulked of whatever may be their hidden desires, are dangerous to their fellows. Such a man, Sir Lyon was secretly convinced, had been Lionel Varick. Such, evidently, was he no longer.

"Would you like to see the haunted room?" He heard Varick ask the question in that deep, musical voice which many people found so attractive. Helen eagerly assented, and they disappeared together.

Sir Lyon and Bill Donnington went off to the library, and for a few moments Blanche Farrow and Miss Burnaby were alone together in the hall. "Your niece seems to have very remarkable psychic gifts," said the old lady hesitatingly.

And Blanche suddenly remembered—Why, of course! Miss Burnaby had been one of the people most strongly affected by what had happened the night before; she must choose her words carefully. So, "Bubbles has a remarkable gift of thought-reading," she answered quietly. "Personally I am quite convinced that it's not anything more."

"Are you?" There was a curious, questioning look on Miss Burnaby's usually placid face. "D'you think then, that what happened last night was all thought-reading?"

"Certainly I think so! But I admit that perhaps I am not a fair judge, for I haven't the slightest belief in what Bubbles would call occultism."

"I know a lady who goes in for all that sort of thing," said Miss Burnaby slowly. "My brother disapproves of my acquaintance with her. She once took me to what is called a Circle, and, of course, I could not help feeling interested. But the medium who was there was not nearly as remarkable as Miss Dunster seems to be; I mean she did not get the same results—at any rate, not in my case."

"I'm afraid what happened last night rather upset you," said Blanche uncomfortably. "I know it would have annoyed me very much if the same thing had happened to me."

"It is true that I was, as a girl, engaged to an Austrian officer. We were very devoted to one another, but my dear father refused his consent. So what occurred last night brought back many painful memories."

Miss Burnaby spoke very simply, but there was a note of deep sadness in her voice, and Blanche told herself that she had been wrong in regarding her as simply a dull, conventional, greedy old woman.

"I'm very sorry now that I allowed Bubbles to do it," she exclaimed. "I'm afraid it upset your brother, too, very much?"

Again there came a curious change over Miss Burnaby's face. She hesitated perceptibly—and then answered: "I would not say so to any of the younger people here, of course. But, as a matter of fact, my brother had a very unpleasant experience as a young man. He fell in love, or thought he fell in love, with a young woman. It was a very unfortunate and tragic affair—for, Miss Farrow, the unhappy young person killed herself! I was very young at the time, and I was not supposed to know anything about it. But of course I did know. Poor Ted had to give evidence at the inquest. It was dreadful, dreadful! We have never spoken of it all these many years we have lived together. You realize, Miss Farrow, that the young person was not in our class of life?"—the old lady drew herself up stiffly.

Blanche felt much relieved when, at that moment Bubbles appeared. She made a delightful, brilliant, Goya-like picture, in her yellow jumper and long chain of coral beads. But she looked very tired.

"Have all the others gone out?" she asked languidly. And before Blanche could answer, Miss Burnaby, murmuring something about having letters to write, quickly left the room. The sight of the girl affected her painfully; but it also intensified her longing for what she had heard called "a private sitting."

"Lionel is showing Miss Brabazon over the house. She's very much thrilled over Pegler's experience. I can't make that girl out—can you, Bubbles?"

Miss Farrow drew nearer to the fire. "She's such a queer mixture of shrewdness and simplicity," she went on. "She doesn't seem ever to have gone anywhere, or seen anyone, and yet she's so—so mature! I believe she's exactly your age."

"I feel about a hundred to-day," said Bubbles wearily.

Blanche was wondering how she could open on the subject about which she'd promised to speak to the girl. Somehow she always very much disliked speaking to Bubbles of what she called, in her own mind, "all that unhealthy rot and nonsense!" And yet she must say something—she had promised Lionel Varick to do so.

Bubbles' next words gave her no opening.

"I have no use for Helen Brabazon," she said pettishly. "A very little of her would bore me to death. But still, I amused myself at dinner last night thinking what I should do if I had all her money."

"All her money?" repeated Blanche, puzzled.

"Don't you know that she's one of the richest girls in England?"

"Is that really true?"—Blanche felt surprised, and more than surprised, keenly interested. "How d'you know, Bubbles? Lionel never told me—."

Bubbles gave a quick, queer look at her aunt. "Mr. Tapster told me all about her last night," she answered. "I suppose because he's so rich himself he takes a kind of morbid interest in other rich people. He said that she's the owner of one of the biggest metal-broking businesses—whatever that may mean—in the world. But her uncle and aunt have never allowed her to know anyone or to see anyone outside their own tiresome, fuggy old lot. They've a perfect terror of fortune-hunters, it seems. The poor girl's hardly ever spoken to a man—not to what I should call a man! I'm surprised they allowed her to come here. I heard her tell Sir Lyon last night at dinner that this was the first time she'd ever paid what she called a country visit. Apparently Harrogate or Brighton is those awful old people's idea of a pleasant change. Up to now Miss Helen's own idea of heaven seems to have been Strathpeffer."

"How very strange!" But Blanche Farrow was not thinking of Helen Brabazon's possible idea of heaven as she uttered the three words.

Bubbles chuckled. "I touched the old gentleman up a bit yesterday, didn't I, Blanche?"

This gave her aunt the opportunity for which she was seeking. "You did! And as a result he made up some cock-and-bull excuse and went back to London this morning. Lionel is very much put out about it."

"I should have thought Lionel would have been glad," said Bubbles, and there came into her voice the touch of slight, almost insolent, contempt with which she generally spoke of Lionel Varick.

"He was very far from glad; he was furious," said Blanche gravely.

"I only did it because he said he wanted his guests entertained," said Bubbles sulkily.

And then, after there had been a rather long silence between them, she asked: "What did you think of it, Blanche? You'd never been at a seance before, had you?"

Miss Farrow hesitated. "Of course I was impressed," she acknowledged. "I kept wondering how you did it. I mean that I kept wondering how those people's thoughts were conveyed to your brain."

"Then you didn't believe that I saw anything of the things I said I saw?" said Bubbles slowly. "You thought it was all fudge on my part?"

Her aunt reddened. "I don't quite know what you mean by saying that. Of course I don't believe you saw the—the figures you described so clearly. But I realized that in some queer way you must have got hold of the memory of your victims. Lionel admits that you did so in his case."

"Does he indeed?" Bubbles spoke with sharp sarcasm.

There rose before her a vision of her host's pale, startled face. In some ways he had been the most inwardly perturbed of her last night's sitters, and she, the medium, had been well aware of it.

"I wonder," she said suddenly and inconsequently, "if Lionel has some enemy—I mean a woman—in his life, of whom his friends know nothing?"

Blanche looked dubiously at the girl. "That's the sort of thing one can never know about a man," she said slowly.

"The woman I mean"—Bubbles was going on rather quickly and breathlessly now—"is not a young woman. She's about sixty, I should think. She has a plain, powerful face, with a lot of grey hair turned off her forehead."

"Have you ever seen such a person with Lionel?" asked Miss Farrow.

"No, not exactly."

"What do you mean, Bubbles?"

"I can't quite explain what I mean. Even before the seance I seemed to feel her last night. I suppose you would say I saw her in his mind—in what some people would call his inner consciousness."

Blanche stared at the girl uncomfortably. "D'you mean you can always see what people are thinking of?" she exclaimed.

Bubbles burst out laughing. "Of course I can't! You needn't feel nervous." She went up to her aunt, and thrust her hand through the other's arm. "Don't be worried, old thing"—she spoke very affectionately. "I've promised Bill that I'll put everything of the kind he and father disapprove of away—just while I'm here! But still, Blanche—"

Miss Farrow had never seen the girl in this serious, thoughtful mood before. "Yes," she said. "Yes, Bubbles?"

"Oh, well, I only just wanted to quote something to you that's rather hackneyed."

"Hackneyed?" repeated Miss Farrow.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, my dear, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Blanche Farrow felt a little piqued. "I've never doubted that," she said curtly.



CHAPTER VII

Meanwhile, one of the subjects of their discussion was thoroughly enjoying her tour of Wyndfell Hall; and as she entered each of the curious, stately rooms upstairs and down, Helen Brabazon uttered an exclamation of pleasure and rather naive admiration. Not a corner or a passage-way but had some fine piece of old furniture, some exquisite needle-picture or panel of tapestry, in keeping with the general character of the ancient dwelling place.

Her cicerone would have enjoyed their progress more had it not been that his companion frequently referred to his late wife. "How strange that Milly did not love this wonderful old house!" she exclaimed. And then, when they had gone a little further on, she suddenly asked: "I wish you'd tell me which was Milly's room? Surely she must have been happy here sometimes!"

But the new master of Wyndfell Hall had never even thought of asking which had been his wife's room. And, on seeing the troubled, embarrassed look which crossed his face while he confessed his ignorance, Helen felt sharply sorry that she had asked the question. To his relief, she spoke no more of Milly, and of Milly's association with the house which so charmed and attracted her.

One of the strangest, most disturbing facts about our complex human nature is how very little we know of what is passing in another's mind. Helen Brabazon would have been amazed indeed had she seen even only a very little way into her present companion's secret thoughts. How surprised she would have been, for instance, to know that the only thing about herself Varick would have liked altered was her association with that part of his life to which he never willingly returned, even in his thoughts. The part of his life, that is, which had been spent by his dying wife and himself at Redsands. It was with nervous horror that he unwillingly recalled any incident, however slight, connected with those tragic weeks. And yet Helen, had she been asked, would have said that he must often dwell on them in loving retrospect. She honestly believed that the link between them, even now, was a survival of what had been their mutual affection for the then dying woman, and the touching dependence that same woman had shown on their joint love and care.

As they wandered on together, apparently on the most happily intimate terms of liking and of friendship, about the delightful old house, there was scarce a thought in Lionel Varick's mind that would not have surprised, disturbed, and puzzled his companion.

For one thing, he was looking at Helen Brabazon far more critically than he had looked at any woman for a very long time, telling himself, rather ruefully the while, that she was not the type of girl that at any time of his life would have naturally attracted him. But he was well aware that this was his misfortune, not his fault; and he did like her—he did respect her.

How strange it was to know that in her well-shaped little hand there lay such immense potential power! Varick fully intended that that little hand should one day, sooner rather than later, lie, confidingly, in his. And when that happened he intended to behave very well. He would "make good," as our American cousins call it; he would go into public life, maybe, and make a big name for himself, and, incidentally, for her. What might he not do, indeed—with Helen Brabazon's vast fortune joined to her impeccable good name! He did not wish to give up his own old family name; but why should they not become the Brabazon-Varicks? So far had he actually travelled in his own mind, as he escorted his young lady guest about the upper rooms and corridors of Wyndfell Hall.

As he glanced, now and again, at the girl walking composedly by his side, he felt he would have given anything—anything—to have known what was behind those candid hazel eyes, that broad white brow. Again he was playing for a great stake, and playing, this time, more or less in the dark....

His mind and memory swung back, in spite of himself, to his late wife. Milly Fauncey had liked him almost from the first day they had met. It had been like the attraction—but of course that was the very last simile that would have occurred to Varick himself—of a rabbit for a cobra. He had had but to look at the self-absorbed, shy, diffident human being, to fascinate and draw her to himself. The task would have been almost too easy, but for the dominant personality of poor Milly's companion, Julia Pigchalke. She had fought against him, tooth and claw; but, cunning old Dame Nature had been on his side in the fight, and, of course, Nature had won.

Miss Pigchalke had always made the fatal mistake of keeping her ex-pupil too much to herself. And during a certain fatal three days when the companion had been confined to her hotel bedroom by a bad cold, the friendship of shy, nervous Milly Fauncey, and of bold, confident Lionel Varick, had fast ripened, fostered by the romantic Italian atmosphere. During these three days Varick, almost without trying to do so, had learnt all there was to learn of the simple-minded spinster and of her financial circumstances. But he was not the man to take any risk, and he had actually paid a flying visit to London—a visit of which he had later had the grace to feel secretly ashamed—for it had had for object that of making quite sure, at Somerset House, that Miss Fauncey's account of herself was absolutely correct.

Yes, the wooing of Milly Fauncey had been almost too easy, and he knew that he was not likely to be so fortunate this time. But now the prize to be won was such an infinitely greater prize!

He told himself that he mustn't be impatient. This, after all, was only the second day of Helen Brabazon's stay at Wyndfell Hall. Perhaps it was a good thing that her cantankerous old uncle had betaken himself off. Misfortune had a way of turning itself into good fortune where Lionel Varick was concerned; for he was bold and brave, as well as always ready to seize opportunity at the flood.

When, at last, they had almost finished their tour of the house, and he was showing her into the haunted room, she clapped her hands delightedly. "This is exactly the sort of room in which one would expect to meet a ghost!" she exclaimed.

The room into which she had just been ushered had, in very truth, a strange, unused, haunted look. Very different from that into which Helen had just peeped. For Miss Farrow's present bed-chamber, with its tapestried and panelled walls, its red brocaded curtains, and carved oak furniture, the whole lit up by a bright, cheerful fire, was very cosy. But here, in the haunted room next door, the fire was only lit at night, and now one of the windows over the moat was open, and it was very cold.

Helen went over to the open window. She leant over and stared down into the dark, sullen-looking water.

"How beautiful this place must be in summer!" she exclaimed.

"I hope you will come and see it, this next summer."

Varick spoke in measured tones, but deep in his heart he not only hoped, but he was determined on something very different—namely, that the girl now turning her bright, guileless, eager face to his would then be installed at Wyndfell Hall as his wife, and therefore as mistress of the wonderful old house. And this hope, this imperious determination, turned his mind suddenly to a less agreeable subject of thought—that is, to Bubbles Dunster.

Had he known what he now knew about Bubbles' curious gift, he would not have included her in his Christmas party. He felt that she might become a disturbing element in the pleasant gathering. Also he was beginning to suspect that she did not like him, and it was a disagreeable, unnerving suspicion in his present mood.

"What do you think of Bubbles Dunster?" he asked.

"Oh, I like her!" cried Helen. "I think she's a wonderful girl!" And then her voice took on a graver tinge: "I couldn't help being very much impressed last night, Mr. Varick. You see, my father, who died when I was only eight years old, always called me 'Girlie.' Somehow that made me feel as if he was really there."

"And yet," said Varick slowly, "Bubbles told you nothing that you didn't know? To my mind what happened last night was simply a clever exhibition of thought-reading. She's always had the gift."

"The odd thing was," said Helen, after a moment's hesitation, "that she said my father didn't like my being here. That wasn't thought-reading—"

"There's something a little queer—a little tricky and malicious sometimes—about Bubbles," he said meaningly.

Helen looked at him, startled. "Is there really? How—how horrid!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, you mustn't take everything Bubbles says as gospel truth," he observed, lighting a cigarette. "Still, she's a very good sort in her way."

As he looked at her now puzzled, bewildered face, he realized that he had produced on Helen's mind exactly the impression he had meant to do. If Bubbles said anything about him which—well, which he would rather was left unsaid—Helen would take no notice of it.



CHAPTER VIII

The party spent the rest of the morning in making friends with one another. Mr. Tapster had already singled out Bubbles Dunster at dinner the night before. He was one of those men—there are many such—who, while professing to despise women, yet devote a great deal of not very profitable thought to them, and to their singular, unexpected, and often untoward behaviour!

As for Sir Lyon Dilsford, he was amused and touched to discover that, as is so often the case with a young and generous-hearted human being, Helen Brabazon had a sincere, if somewhat vague, desire to use her money for the good of humanity. He was also touched and amused to find how ignorant she was of life, and how really child-like, under her staid and sensible appearance. Of what she called "society" she cherished an utter contempt, convinced that it consisted of frivolous women and idle men—in a word, of heartless coquettes and of fortune-hunters. To Helen Brabazon the world of men and women was still all white and all black. Sir Lyon, who, like most intelligent men, enjoyed few things more than playing schoolmaster to an attractive young woman, found the hour that he and Miss Brabazon spent together in the library of Wyndfell Hall speed by all too quickly. They were both sorry when the gong summoned them to luncheon.

After a while Varick had persuaded Miss Burnaby to put on a hat and jacket, and go for a little walk alone with him, while Blanche Farrow went off for a talk with young Donnington. Bubbles was the subject of their conversation, and different as were the ingenuous young man and his somewhat cynical and worldly companion, they found that they were cordially agreed as to the desirability of Bubbles abandoning the practices which had led to Mr. Burnaby's abrupt departure that morning.

"Of course, I think them simply an extension of the extraordinary thought-reading gifts she had as a small child," observed Blanche.

"I wish I could think it was only that—I'm afraid it's a good deal more than mere thought-reading," Donnington said reluctantly.

* * * * *

Luncheon was a pleasant, lively meal; and after they had all had coffee and cigarettes, Bubbles managed to press almost the whole party into the business of decorating the church. Their host entered into the scheme with seeming heartiness; but at the last moment he and Blanche Farrow elected to stay at home with Miss Burnaby.

The younger folk started off, a cheerful party—James Tapster, who, as the others realized by something he said, hadn't been into a church for years (he said he hated weddings, and, on principle, never attended funerals); Sir Lyon, who was always at anyone's disposal when a bit of work had to be done; Helen Brabazon, who declared joyfully that she had always longed to decorate a country church; Bubbles herself, who drove the donkey-cart piled high with holly and with mistletoe; and Donnington, who pulled the donkey along.

Suffolk is a county of noble village churches; but of the lively group of young people who approached it on this particular Christmas Eve, only Donnington understood what a rare and perfect ecclesiastical building stood before them. He had inherited from a scholarly father a keen interest in church architecture, and he had read an account of Darnaston church the night before in the book which dealt with Wyndfell Hall and its surroundings.

They were met in the porch by the bachelor rector. "This is really kind!" he exclaimed. "And it will be of the greatest help, for I've been sent for to a neighbouring parish unexpectedly, and I'm afraid that I can't stop and help you."

As the little party passed through into the church, more than one of them was impressed by its lofty beauty. Indeed, the word which rose to both Sir Lyon's and Donnington's lips was the word "impressive." Neither of them had ever seen so impressive a country church.

When lifted from the donkey-cart the little heap of holly and other greenery looked pitifully small lying on the stone floor of the central aisle; and though everyone worked with a will, there wasn't very much to show for it when Mr. Tapster declared, in a cross tone, that it must be getting near tea-time.

"It's much more nearly finished than any of you realize," said Bubbles good-humouredly. "I've done this sort of thing every year since I was quite a kid. Bill and I will come down after tea and finish it up. We shan't want you."

"I shouldn't mind coming back," exclaimed Helen Brabazon. "I've enjoyed every minute of the time here!"

But Bubbles declared that she didn't want any of them but Bill. All she would ask the other men to do would be to cut down some trails of ivy. She explained that she always avoided the use of ivy unless, as in this case, quantity rather than quality was required.

So they all tramped cheerfully back to Wyndfell Hall.

Tea was served in the library, and the host looked on with benign satisfaction at the lively scene, though Blanche Farrow saw his face change and stiffen, when his penetrating eyes rested in turn for a long moment on Bubbles' now laughing little face. Perhaps because of that frowning look, she drew the girl after her into the hall. "Come in here for a moment, Bubbles—I want to speak to you. I've just heard Helen Brabazon say something about raising the ghost. No more seances while I'm in command here—is that understood?"

And Bubbles looked up with an injured, innocent expression. "Of course it's understood! Though, as a matter of fact, Miss Burnaby has already asked me to give her a private sitting."

"You must promise me to refuse, Bubbles—" Miss Farrow spoke very decidedly. "I don't know how you do what you did last night, and, to tell you the truth, I don't care—for it's none of my business. But there was one moment this morning when I feared that horrid Mr. Burnaby was going to take his sister and his niece away—and that really would have been serious!"

"Serious?" queried Bubbles. "Why serious, Blanche? We should have got on very well without them."

Her aunt looked round. They were quite alone, standing, for the moment, in a far corner of the great room, near the finely carved confessional box, which seemed, even to Blanche Farrow, an incongruous addition to the furniture.

"You're very much mistaken, Bubbles! Lionel would have never forgiven you—or me. He attaches great importance to these people; Helen Brabazon was a great friend of his poor wife's." She hesitated, and then said rather awkwardly: "I sometimes wish you liked him better; he's a good friend, Bubbles."

"I should think more a bad enemy than a good friend," muttered the girl, in so low a voice that her aunt hardly caught the ungracious words.

That was all—but that was enough. Blanche told herself that she had now amply fulfilled the promise she had made to Lionel Varick when the two had stood speeding their parting guest this morning from Wyndfell Hall. Even quite at the end Mr. Burnaby had been barely civil. He seemed to think that there had been some kind of conspiracy against him the night before; and as they watched the car go over the moat bridge, Varick had muttered: "I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pounds!" But he had recovered his good temper, and even apologized to Blanche for having felt so much put out by the action of a cantankerous old man.

The others were now all streaming into the hall, and Bubbles would hardly allow the good-natured Sir Lyon and Bill Donnington to finish their cigarettes before she shooed them out to cut down some ivy. Varick looked annoyed when he heard that the decorations in the church were not yet finished. "Can't we bribe some of the servants to go down and do them?" he asked. "It seems a shame that you and Donnington should have to go off there again in the cold and darkness."

But in her own way Bubbles had almost as strong a will as had her host. She always knew what she wanted to do, and generally managed to do it. "I would much rather finish the work myself, and I think Bill would rather come too," she said coolly.

So once more the little donkey-cart was loaded up with holly and trails of ivy, and the two set off amid the good-natured comments and chaff of the rest of the party. James Tapster alone looked sulky and annoyed. He wondered how a bright, amusing girl like Bubbles Dunster could stand the company of such a commonplace young man as was Bill Donnington.

As they reached the short stretch of open road which separated Wyndfell Hall from the church, Bubbles felt suddenly how cold it was.

"I think we shall have snow to-morrow," said Donnington, looking round at his companion. He could only just see her little face in the twilight, and when they finally passed through the porch in the glorious old church, it seemed, for the first few moments, pitch-dark.

"I'll tell you what I like best about this church," said the girl suddenly.

"For my part," said Donnington simply, "I like everything about it."

He struck a match, and after a few minutes of hard work, managed to light several of the hanging oil lamps.

"What I like best," went on Bubbles, "are the animals up there."

She pointed to where, just under the cambered oak roof, there ran a dado, on which, carved in white bas-relief, lions, hares, stags, dogs, cats, crocodiles, and birds, formed a singular procession, which was continued round the nave and choir.

"Yes, I like them too," assented Donnington slowly. "Though somehow I did feel this afternoon that they were out of place in a church."

"Oh, how can you say that?" cried the girl. "I love to think of them here! I'm sure that at night they leap joyfully down, and skip about the church, praising the Lord."

"Bubbles!" he exclaimed reprovingly.

"Almost any animal," she said, with a touch of seriousness, "is nicer, taking it all in all, than almost any human being." And then she quoted in the deep throaty voice which was one of her greatest charms:

"A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all Heaven in a rage."

"The one I should like to see put over every manger is:

"A horse misus'd upon the road Calls to Heaven for human blood,"

said Donnington.

"Oh!" she cried, "and Bill, surely the best of all is:

"A skylark wounded on the wing, A cherubim doth cease to sing."

Donnington smiled. "I suppose I'm more practical than you are," he said. "If I were a schoolmaster, I'd have inscribed on the walls of every classroom:

"Kill not the moth or butterfly, For the Last Judgment draweth nigh."

They worked very hard during the half-hour that followed, though only the finishing touches remained to be done. Still, it meant moving a ladder about, and stretching one's arms a good deal, and Bubbles insisted on doing her full share of everything.

"Let's rest a few minutes," she said at last, and leading the way up the central aisle, she sat down wearily in one of the carved choir stalls.

Then she lifted her arms, and putting her hands behind her neck, she tipped her head back.

The young man came and sat down in the next stall. Bubbles was leaning back more comfortably now, her red cap almost off her head. There was a great look of restfulness on her pale, sensitive face.

She put out her hand and felt for his; after a moment of hesitation he slid down and knelt close to her.

"Bubbles," he whispered, "my darling—darling Bubbles. I wish that here and now you would make up your mind to give up everything—" He stopped speaking, and bending, kissed her hand.

"Yes," she said dreamily. "Give up everything, Bill? Perhaps I will. But what do you mean by everything?"

There was a self-pitying note in her low, vibrant voice. "You know it is given to people, sometimes, to choose between good and evil. I'm afraid"—she leant forward, and passed her right hand, with a touch of tenderness most unusual with her, over his upturned face and curly hair—"I'm afraid, Bill, that, almost without knowing it, I chose evil, 'Evil, be thou my good.' Isn't that what the wicked old Satanists used to say?"

"Don't you say it too!" he exclaimed, sharply distressed.

"I know I acted stupidly—in fact, as we're in a church I don't mind saying I acted very wrongly last night."

Bubbles spoke in a serious tone—more seriously, indeed, than she had ever yet spoken to her faithful, long-suffering friend. "But a great deal of what happens to me and round me, Bill, I can't help—I wish I could," she said slowly.

"I don't quite understand." There was a painful choking feeling in his throat. "Try and tell me what you mean, Bubbles."

"What I mean is clear enough"—she now spoke with a touch of impatience. "I mean that wherever I am, They come too, and gather about me. It wasn't my fault that that horrible Thing appeared to Pegler as soon as I entered the house."

"But why should you think the ghost Pegler saw—if she did see it—had anything to do with you? Wyndfell Hall has been haunted for over a hundred years—so the village people say."

"Pegler saw nothing till I came. And though I struggle against the belief, and though I very seldom admit it, even to myself, I know quite well, Bill, that I'm never really alone—never free of Them unless—unless, Bill, I'm in a holy place, when they don't dare to come."

There was a tone of fear, of awful dread, in her voice. In spite of himself he felt impressed.

"But why should they come specially round you?" he asked uneasily.

"You know as well as I do that I'm a strong medium. But I'll tell you, Bill, something which I've never told you before."

"Yes," he said, with a strange sinking of the heart. "What's that, Bubbles?"

"You know that Persian magician, or Wise Man, whom certain people in London went cracked over last spring?"

"The man you would go and see?"

"Yes, of course I mean that man. Well, when he saw me he made his interpreter tell me that he had a special message for me—"

Bubbles was leaning forward now, her hands resting on Bill's shoulders. "I wonder if I ought to tell you all he said," she whispered. "Perhaps I ought to keep it secret."

"Of course you ought to tell me! What was the message?"

"He said that I had rent the veil, wilfully, and that I was often surrounded by the evil demons who had come rushing through; that only by fasting and praying could I hope to drive them back, and close the rent which I had made."

"I shouldn't allow myself to think too much of what he said," said Bill hoarsely. "And yet—and yet, Bubbles? There may have been something in it—."

He spoke very earnestly, poor boy.

"Of course there was a great deal in it. But they're not always demons," she said slowly. "Now, for instance, as I sit here, where good, simple people have been praying together for hundreds of years, the atmosphere is kind and holy, not wicked and malignant, as it was last night."

She waited a moment, then began again, "I remember going into a cottage not long ago, where an old man holds a prayer meeting every Wednesday evening—he's a Dissenter—you know the sort of man I mean? Well, I felt extraordinarily comforted, and left alone."

Her voice sank to a low whisper. "I suppose"—there came a little catch in her voice—"I suppose, Bill, that I am what people used to call 'possessed.' In old days I should have been burnt as a witch. Sometimes I feel as if a battle were going on round me and for me—a battle between good and evil spirits. That was what I was feeling last night, before you came up. I couldn't rest—I couldn't stay in bed. I felt as if I must move about to avoid—"

"To avoid what?" he asked.

"—Their clutchings."

Her voice dropped. "I've been in old houses where I seemed to know everything about every ghost!"—she tried to smile. "People don't change when they what we call die. If they're dull and stupid, they remain dull and stupid. But here in Wyndfell Hall, I'm frightened. I'm frightened of Varick—I feel as if there were something secret, secret and sinister, about him. I seem to hear the words, 'Beware—beware,' when he is standing by me. What do you think about him, Bill? There are a lot of lying spirits about."

"I haven't thought much about Varick one way or the other," said Donnington reluctantly. "But I should have thought he was a good chap. See how fond Miss Farrow is of him?"

"That doesn't mean much," she said dreamily. "Blanche doesn't know anything about human nature—she only thinks she does. She's no spiritual vision left at all."

"I'm sorry you have that feeling about Varick," said Bill uncomfortably.

"Varick is never alone," said Bubbles slowly. "When I first arrived, and he came out to the porch to meet me, there was Something standing by him, which looked so real, Bill, that I thought it really was a woman of flesh and blood. I nearly said to him, 'Who's that? Introduce me.'"

"D'you mean you think you actually see spirits, even when you're not setting out to do so, Bubbles?" asked. Bill.

She had never said that to him before. But then this was the first time she had ever talked to him as freely and as frankly as she was talking now.

"Yes, that's exactly what I do mean," she said. "It's a sort of power that grows—and oh, Bill, I'd do anything in the world to get rid of it! But this woman whom I saw standing by Lionel Varick in the porch was not a spirit. She was an astral body; that is, she was alive somewhere else: it was her thoughts—her vengeful, malicious thoughts—which brought her here."

"I can't believe that!" he exclaimed.

"It's true, Bill. Though I never saw an astral body before, I knew that Thing to be one—as soon as I realized it wasn't a real woman standing there."

"What was she like?" he asked, impressed against his will.

"An ugly, commonplace-looking woman. But she had a powerful, determined sort of face, and she was staring up at him with a horrible expression: I could see that she hated him, and wished him ill—"

"Have you ever seen the—the Thing again?"

Yes, of course I have. The same astral body was there last night. It was from her that his mother was trying to shield him."

"But you've never seen this astral body—as you call it—excepting on those two occasions?"

Bubbles hesitated. "I've only seen her clearly twice. But during the week that I've been here, I've often felt that she was close to Lionel Varick."

"And what's your theory about her? Why does she hate him, I mean?"

"My theory—?" the girl hesitated again. "I should think it's someone he was fond of when he was a young man, and whom he treated badly. She's ugly enough now—but then women do change so."

"Bubbles," he uttered her name very seriously.

"Yes, Bill?"

"Surely you can stop yourself seeing these kind of strange, dreadful, unnatural things?"

Bubbles did not answer all at once. And then she said: "Yes—and no, Bill! It sometimes happens that I see what you would call a ghost without wishing to see it; yet I confess that sometimes I could stop myself. But it excites and stimulates me! I feel a sort of longing to be in touch with what no one else is in touch with. But I'll tell you one thing"—she was pressing up closer to him now, and his heart was beating.... If only this enchanted hour could go on—if only Bubbles would continue in this gentle, sincere, confiding mood—

"Yes," he said hoarsely, "what will you tell me?"

"I never see anything bad when I'm with you. I think I saw your Guardian Angel the other day, Bill."

He tried to laugh.

"Indeed I did! Though you are so tiresome and priggish," she whispered, "though often, as you know, I should like to shake you, still, I know that you've chosen the good way; that's why our ways lie so apart, dearest—"

As she uttered the strange words, she had slid down, and was now lying in his arms, her face turned up to his in the dim light....

Their ways apart? Ah, no! He caught her fiercely to his heart, and for the first time their lips met in a long, clinging kiss.

Then, all at once, he got up and pulled Bubbles on to her feet. "We must be going back to the house," he said, speaking with a touch of hardness and decision which was rare in his dealings with the girl.

"Watch with me, and pray for me," she muttered—and then: "You don't know what a comfort you are to me, Bill."

A wild wish suddenly possessed him to turn and implore her, now that she was in this strange, gentle, yielding mood, to marry him at once—to become his wife in secret, under any conditions that seemed good to her! But he checked the impulse, drove it back. He felt that he would be taking a mean advantage if he did that now. She had once said to him: "I must marry a rich man, Bill. I should make any poor man miserable."

He had never forgotten that, nor forgiven her for saying it—though he had never believed that it was true.

Almost as if she was reading into his mind, Bubbles said wistfully: "You won't leave off caring for me, Bill? Not even if I marry somebody else? Not even—?" She laughed nervously, and her laugh, to Donnington a horrible laugh, echoed through the dimly lit church. "Not even," she repeated, "if I bring myself to marry Mr. Tapster?"

He seized her roughly by the arm. "What d'you mean, Bubbles?" he asked sternly.

"Don't do that! You hurt me—I was only joking," she said, shrinking back. "But you are really too simple, Bill. Didn't it occur to you that Mr. Tapster had been asked here for me?"

"For you?" He uttered the words mechanically. He understood now why men sometimes murder their sweet-hearts—for no apparent motive.

"He's not a bad sort. It isn't his fault that he's so repulsive. It wouldn't be fair if he was as rich as that, and good-looking, and amiable, and agreeable, as well—would it?"

They were walking down the church, and perhaps Bubbles caught a glimpse into his heart: "I'm a beast," she exclaimed. "A beast to have spoiled our time together in this dear old church by saying that to you about Mr. Tapster. Try and forget it, Bill!"

He made no answer. His brain was in a whirlwind of wrath, of suspicion, of anger, of sick jealousy. This was the real danger—not all the nonsense that Bubbles talked about her power of raising ghosts, and of being haunted by unquiet spirits. The real danger the girl was in now was that of being persuaded into marrying that loathsome Tapster—for his money.

He left her near the door while he went back to put out the lights. Then he groped his way to where she was standing, waiting for him. In the darkness he looked for, found, and lifted, the heavy latch. Together they began pacing down the path between the graves in the churchyard, and then all of a sudden he put his hand on her arm: "What's that? Hark!" he whispered.

He seemed to hear issuing from the grand old church a confused, musical medley of sounds—a bleating, a neighing, a lowing, even a faint trumpeting, all mingling together and forming a strange, not unmelodious harmony.

"D'you hear anything, Bubbles?" he asked, his heart beating, his face, in the darkness, all aglow.

"No, nothing," she answered back, surprised. "We must hurry, Bill. We're late as it is."



CHAPTER IX

It had been Bubbles' happy idea that the children of the tiny hamlet which lay half-a-mile from Wyndfell Hall, should have a Christmas tree. Hers, also, that the treat for the children was to be combined with the distribution of a certain amount of coal and of other creature comforts to the older folk.

All the arrangements with regard to this double function had been made before the party at Wyndfell Hall had been gathered together. But still, there were all sorts of last things to be thought of, and Lionel Varick and Bubbles became quite chummy over the affair.

Blanche Farrow was secretly amused to note with what zest her friend threw himself into the role of country squire. She thought it a trifle absurd, the more so that, as a matter of fact, the people of Wyndfell Green were not his tenants, for he had only a life interest in the house itself. But Varick was determined to have a good, old-fashioned country Christmas; and he was seconded in his desire not only by Bubbles, but by Helen Brabazon, who entered into everything with an almost childish eagerness. Indeed, the doings on Christmas Day brought her and Bubbles together, too. They began calling each other by their Christian names, and soon the simple-minded heiress became as if bewitched by the other girl.

"She's a wonderful creature," she confided to that same wonderful girl's aunt. "I've never known anyone in the least like Bubbles! At first I confess I thought her very odd—she almost repelled me. But now I can see what a kind, good heart she has, and I do hope she'll let me be her friend."

"I think you would be a very good friend for Bubbles," answered Blanche pleasantly. "You're quite right as to one thing, Miss Brabazon—she has a very kind, warm heart. She loves to give people pleasure. She's quite delightful with children."

The speaker felt that it would indeed be a good thing if Bubbles could attach herself to such a simple yet sensible friend as was this enormously rich girl. "And if you really like Bubbles," went on Blanche Farrow deliberately, "then I should like just to tell you one or two things about her."

Helen became all eager, pleased attention. "Yes?" she exclaimed. "I wish you would! Bubbles interests me more than anyone I ever met."

"I want to tell you that I and Bubbles' father very much regret her going in for all that—that occultism, I believe it's called."

"But you and Mr. Varick both think it's only thought-reading," said Helen quickly.

Blanche felt rather surprised. It was acute and clever of the girl to have said that. But no doubt Miss Burnaby had repeated their conversation.

"Yes; I personally think it's only thought-reading. Still, it's thought-reading carried very far. The kind of power Bubbles showed the night before last seems to me partly hypnotic, and that's why I disapprove of it so strongly."

"I agree," said Helen thoughtfully. "It was much more than ordinary thought-reading. And I suppose that it's true that she thought she saw the—the spirits she described so wonderfully?"

"I doubt if even she thought she actually saw them. I think she only perceived each image in the mind of the person to whom she was speaking."

"I suppose," asked Helen hesitatingly, "that you haven't the slightest belief in ghosts, Miss Farrow?"

"No, I haven't the slightest belief in ghosts," Blanche smiled. "But I do believe that if a person thinks sufficiently hard about it, he or she can almost evolve the figure of a ghost. I think that's what happened to my maid the other night. Pegler's a most sensible person, yet she's quite convinced that she saw the ghost of the woman who is believed to have killed her little stepson in the room next to that in which I am now sleeping."

And then as she saw a rather peculiar look flit over her companion's face, she added quickly: "D'you think that you have seen anything since you've been here, Miss Brabazon?"

Helen hesitated. "No," she said. "I haven't exactly seen anything. But—well, the truth is, Miss Farrow, that I do feel sometimes as if Wyndfell Hall was haunted by the spirit of my poor friend Milly, Mr. Varick's wife. Perhaps I feel as I do because, of course, I know that this strange and beautiful old house was once her home. It's pathetic, isn't it, to see how very little remains of her here? One might, indeed, say that nothing remains of her at all! I haven't even been able to find out which was her room; and I've often wondered in the last two days whether she generally sat in the hall or in that lovely little drawing-room."

"I can tell you one thing," said Blanche rather shortly, "that is that there is a room in this house called 'the schoolroom.' It's between the dining-room and the servants' offices. I believe it was there that Miss Fauncey, as the people about here still call her, used to do her lessons, with a rather disagreeable woman rejoicing in the extraordinary name of Pigchalke, who lived on with her till she married."

"That horrible, horrible woman!" exclaimed Helen. "Of course I know about her. She adored poor Milly. But she was an awful tyrant to her all the same. She actually wrote to me some time ago. It was such an odd letter—quite a mad letter, in fact. It struck me as so queer that before answering it I sent it on to Mr. Varick. She wanted to see me, to talk to me about poor Milly's last illness. She has a kind of crazy hatred of Mr. Varick. Of course I got out of seeing her. Luckily we were just starting for Strathpeffer. I put her off—I didn't actually refuse. I said I couldn't see her then, but that I would write to her later."

"Lionel mentioned her to me the other day. He allows her a hundred a year," said Blanche indifferently.

"How very good of him!" in a very different tone of voice she said musingly: "I have sometimes wondered if the room I'm sleeping in now was that in which Milly slept as a girl. Sometimes I feel as if she was close to me, trying to speak to me—it's a most queer, uncanny, horrid kind of feeling!"

* * * * *

Blanche and Bubbles knew from experience that Christmas Day in the country is not invariably a pleasant day; but they had thought out every arrangement to make it "go" as well as was possible. They were all to have a sort of early tea, and then those who felt like it would proceed to the village schoolroom, and help with the Christmas Treat.

An important feature of the proceedings was to be a short speech by Lionel Varick. Blanche had found, to her surprise and amusement, that he had set his heart on making it. He wanted to get into touch with his poorer neighbours—not only in a material sense, by distributing gifts of beef and blankets; that he had already arranged to do—but in a closer, more human sense. No one she had ever known desired more ardently to be liked than did the new owner of Wyndfell Hall.

The programme was carried out to the letter. They all drank a cup of tea standing in the hall when dressed ready for their expedition. Everyone was happy, everyone was in a good humour—excepting, perhaps, Bill Donnington. The few words Bubbles had said concerning Mr. Tapster had frightened, as well as angered him. He watched the unattractive millionaire with jealous eyes. It was only too clear that Bubbles had fascinated James Tapster, as she generally did all dull and unimaginative people. But Donnington, perforce, had to keep his jealous feelings to himself; and after they had all reached the school-room of the pretty, picturesque little village, he found he had far too much to do in helping to serve the hungry children and their parents with the feast provided for them, to have time for private feelings of fear, jealousy and pain.

A small platform had been erected across one end of the room. But the programme of the proceedings which were to take place thereon only contained two items. The first of these took most of the Wyndfell Hall house-party completely by surprise; for Bubbles and her aunt had kept their secret well.

Tables had been pushed aside, benches put end to end; the whole audience, with Lionel Varick's guests in front, were seated, when suddenly there leapt on to the platform the strangest and most fantastic-looking little figure imaginable!

For a moment no one, except Bill Donnington, guessed who or what the figure was. There came a great clapping of hands and stamping of feet—for, of course, it was Bubbles! Bubbles dressed up as a witch—red cloak, high peaked hat, short multi-coloured skirt, high boots and broom-stick—all complete!

When the applause had died down, she recited a quaint little poem of her own composition, wishing all there present the best of luck in the coming year. And then she executed a kind of fantastic pas seul, skimming hither and thither across the tiny stage.

Everyone watched her breathlessly: Donnington with mingled admiration, love, and jealous disapproval; James Tapster with a feeling that perhaps the time had come for him to allow himself to be "caught" at last; Helen Brabazon with wide-eyed, kindly envy of the other girl's cleverness; Varick with a queer feeling of growing suspicion and dislike.

Finally, Bubbles waved her broom-stick, and more than one of those present imagined that they saw the light, airy-looking little figure flying across the hall, and so out of a window—.

The whole performance did not last five minutes, and yet few of those who were present ever forgot it. It was so strange, so uncanny, so vivid. Bill Donnington heard one of the village women behind him say: "There now! Did you ever see the like? She was the sort they burnt in the old days, and I don't wonder, either."

After this exciting performance the appearance of "the squire," as some of the village people were already beginning to call him, did not produce, perhaps, quite the sensation it might have done had he been the first instead of the second item on the programme. But as he stood there, a fine figure of a man, his keen, good-looking face lit up with a very agreeable expression of kindliness and of good-will, a wave of appreciation seemed to surge towards him from the body of the hall.

Poor Milly's father had been the sort of landowner—to the honour of England be it said the species has ever been comparatively rare—who regarded his tenants as of less interest than the livestock on his home farm. What he had done for them he had done grudgingly; but it was even now clear to them all that in the new squire they had a very different kind of gentleman.

Varick was moved and touched—far more so than any of those present realized. The scene before him—this humble little school-room, and the simple people standing there—meant to him the fulfilment of a life-long dream. And that was not all. As he was hesitating for his first word, his eyes rested on the front bench of his audience, and he saw Helen Brabazon's eager, guileless face, upturned to his, full of interest and sympathy.

He also felt himself in touch with the others there. Blanche, looking her own intelligent, dignified, pleasant self, was a goodly sight. Sir Lyon Dilsford, too, was in the picture; but Varick felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the landless baronet. Sir Lyon would have made such a good, conscientious squire; he was the kind of man who would have helped the boys to get on in the world—the girls, if need be, to make happy marriages. James Tapster looked rather out of it all; he looked his apathetic, sulky self—a man whom nothing would ever galvanize into real good-fellowship. How could so intelligent a woman as Blanche think that any money could compensate a clever, high-spirited girl like Bubbles for marrying a James Tapster? Varick was glad Bubbles was not "in front." She was probably divesting herself of that extraordinary witch costume of hers behind the little curtained aperture to his left.

And then, all at once, he realized that Bubbles was among his audience after all! She was sitting by herself, on a little stool just below the platform. He suddenly saw her head, with its shock of dark-brown hair, and there came over him a slight feeling of discomfort. Bubbles had worked like a Trojan. All this could not have happened but for her; and yet—and yet Varick again told himself that he could very well have dispensed with Bubbles from his Christmas house party. There was growing up, in his dark, secretive heart, an unreasoning, violent dislike to the girl.

All these disconnected thoughts flashed through his mind in something under half-a-minute, and then Varick made his pleasant little speech, welcoming the people there, and saying he hoped there would ensue a long and pleasant connection between them.

There was a great deal more stamping of feet and handclapping, and then gradually the company, gentle and simple, dispersed.

Miss Farrow still had long and luxuriant hair, and perhaps the pleasantest half-hour in each day had come to be that half-hour just before she dressed for dinner, when Pegler, with gentle, skilful fingers, brushed and combed her mistress's beautiful tresses, and finally dressed them to the best advantage.

On Christmas night this daily ceremony had been put off till Miss Farrow's bed-time, when, after a quiet, short evening, the party had broken up on the happiest terms with one another.

As Blanche sat down, and her maid began taking the hairpins out of her hair, she told herself with a feeling of gratification that this had been one of the pleasantest Christmas days she had ever spent. Everything had gone off so well, and she could see that Varick had enjoyed every moment of it, from his surprise distribution of little gifts to his guests at breakfast, to the last warm, grateful hand-shake on the landing outside her door.

"Were you in the school-room, Pegler?" she asked kindly. "It was really rather charming, wasn't it? Everyone happy—the children and the old people especially. And they all so enjoyed Miss Bubbles' dressing up as a witch!"

"Why, yes," said Pegler grudgingly. "It was all very nice, ma'am, in a way, and, as you say, it all went off very well. But there's a queer rumour got about already, ma'am."

"A queer rumour? What d'you mean, Pegler?"

"Quite a number of the village folk say that Mr. Varick's late lady, the one who used to live here—" Pegler stopped speaking suddenly, and went on brushing her mistress's hair more vigorously.

"Yes, Pegler?"—Miss Farrow spoke with a touch of impatience. "What about Mrs. Lionel Varick?"

"Well, ma'am, I don't suppose you'll credit it, but quite a number of them do say that her sperrit was there during this afternoon. One woman I spoke to, who was school-room maid here a matter of twenty years back, said she saw her as clear as clear, up on the platform, wearing the sort of grey dress she used to wear when she was a girl, ma'am, when her father was still alive. None of the men seem to have seen her—but quite a number of the women did. The post-mistress says she could have sworn to her anywhere."

"What absolute nonsense!"

Blanche felt shocked as well as vexed.

"It was when Mr. Varick was making that speech of his," said Pegler slowly. "If you'll pardon me, ma'am, for saying so, it don't seem nonsense to me. After what I've seen myself, I can believe anything. Seeing is believing, ma'am."

"People's eyes very often betray them, Pegler. Haven't you sometimes looked at a thing and thought it something quite different from what it really was?"

"Yes, I have," acknowledged Pegler reluctantly. "And of course, the lighting was very bad. Some of the people hope that Mr. Varick's going to bring electric light into the village—d'you think he'll do that, ma'am?"

"No," said Miss Farrow decidedly. "I shouldn't think there's a hope of it. The village doesn't really belong to him, Pegler. It was wonderfully kind of him to give what he did give to-day, to a lot of people with whom he has really nothing to do at all."

And then, after her maid had gone, Blanche lay in bed, and stared into the still bright fire. Her brain seemed abnormally active, and she found it impossible to go to sleep. What a curious, uncanny, uncomfortable story—that of "poor Milly's" ghost appearing on the little platform of the village school-room! There seems no measure, even in these enlightened days, to what people will say and believe.

And then there flashed across her a recollection of the fact that Bubbles had been there, sitting just below Lionel Varick. Strange, half-forgotten stories of Indian magic—of a man hung up in chains padlocked by British officers, and then, a moment later, that same man, freed, standing in their midst, the chains rattling together, empty—floated through Blanche Farrow's mind. Was it possible that Bubbles possessed uncanny powers—powers which had something to do with the immemorial magic of the immemorial East?

Blanche had once heard the phenomenon of the vanishing rope trick discussed at some length between a number of clever people. She had paid very little attention to what had been said at the time, but she now strained her memory to recapture the sense of the words which had been uttered. One of the men present, a distinguished scientist, had actually seen the trick done. He had seen an Indian swarm up the rope and disappear—into thin air! What had he called it? Collective hypnotism? Yes, that was the expression he had used. Some such power Bubbles certainly possessed, and perhaps to-day she had chosen to exercise it by recalling to the minds of those simple village folk the half-forgotten figure of the one-time mistress of Wyndfell Hall. If she had really done this, Bubbles had played an ungrateful, cruel trick on Lionel Varick.

Blanche at last dropped off to sleep, but Pegler's ridiculous yet sinister story had spoilt the pleasant memories of her day, and even her night, for she slept badly, and awoke unrefreshed.



CHAPTER X

There are few places in a civilized country more desolate than a big, empty country railway station: such a station as that at Newmarket—an amusing, bustling sight on a race day; strangely still and deserted, even on a fine summer day, when there's nothing doing in the famous little town; and, in the depth of winter, extraordinarily forlorn. The solitariness and the desolation were very marked on the early afternoon of New Year's Eve which saw Varick striding up and down the deserted platform waiting for Dr. Panton, and Dr. Panton's inseparable companion, a big, ugly, intelligent spaniel called Span.

Varick had more than one reason to be grateful to the young medical man with whom Fate had once thrown him into such close contact; and so this last spring, when Panton had had to be in London for a few days, Varick had taken a deal of trouble to ensure that the country doctor should have a good time. But his own pleasure in his friend's company had been somewhat spoilt by something Panton had then thought it right to tell him. This something was that his late wife's one-time companion, Miss Pigchalke, had gone to Redsands, and, seeking out the doctor, had tried to force him to say that poor Mrs. Varick had been ill-treated—or if not exactly ill-treated, then neglected—by her husband, during her last illness.

"I wouldn't have told you, but that I think you ought to know that the woman has an inexplicable grudge against you," he had said.

"Not inexplicable," Varick had answered quietly. "For Julia Pigchalke first came as governess to Wyndfell Hall when my wife was ten years old, and she stayed on with her ultimately as companion—in fact as more friend than companion. Of course I queered her pitch!"

And then, rather hesitatingly, he had gone on to tell Dr. Panton that he was now paying his enemy an annuity of a hundred a year. This had been left to Miss Pigchalke in an early will made by his poor wife, but it had not been repeated in the testatrix's final will, as Mrs. Varick had fiercely resented Miss Pigchalke's violent disapproval of her marriage.

Panton had been amazed to hear of Varick's quite uncalled-for generosity, and he had exclaimed, "Well, that does take the cake! I wish I'd known this before. Still, I don't think Miss Pigchalke will forget in a hurry what I said to her. I warned her that some of the things she said, or half-said, were libellous, and that it might end very badly for her if she said them again. She took the line that I, being a doctor, was privileged—but I assured her that I was nothing of the kind! Still, she's a venomous old woman, and if I were you I'd write her a solicitor's letter."

That little conversation, which had taken place more than six months ago, came back, word for word, to Varick's mind, as he walked sharply up and down the platform, trying to get warm. It was strange how Miss Pigchalke and her vigorous, unpleasant personality haunted him. But he had found in his passbook only this morning that she had already cashed his last cheque for fifty pounds. Surely she couldn't, in decency, go on with this half-insane kind of persecution if she accepted what was, after all, his free and generous gift every six months?

* * * * *

The train came steaming in, and only three passengers got out. But among them was the man for whom Varick was waiting. And, at the sight of the lithe, alert figure of Dr. Panton, and of the one-time familiar form of good old Span, Varick's troubled, uncomfortable thoughts took wings to themselves and flew away.

The two men's hands met in a firm, friendly grasp. "This is jolly," said the younger of the two, as they walked out to the big car. "And I'm ever so much obliged to you for letting me bring Span!"

And Panton did think it very jolly of Varick to have left his guests, and come all this way through the cold to meet him. It was good of him, too, to have let him bring his dog.

As they drove slowly through the picturesque High Street of the famous town, Varick's friend looked about him with keen interest and enjoyment. He had an eager, intelligent, alert mind, and he had never been to Newmarket before.

Once they got clear of the town, and were speeding through the pleasant, typically English country lanes which give Suffolk a peculiarly soothing charm Span (who was a rather large liver-and-white spaniel), lying stretched out sedately at their feet, Varick suddenly asked carelessly: "No more news of my enemy, Miss Pigchalke, I suppose?"

Panton turned to him quickly in the rushing wind: "Yes, something has happened. But I didn't think it worth writing to you about. An extraordinary advertisement appeared about a month ago in one of the popular Sunday papers, and Mrs. Bilton—you remember the woman—?"

Varick shook his head. He looked exceedingly disturbed and annoyed, and the man now sitting by his side suddenly regretted that he had said anything about that absurd advertisement.

"Mrs. Bilton was the woman whom I recommended to you as a charwoman, soon after you were settled down at Redsands."

"Yes, I remember the name now. What of her?"

"She came up to see me one evening about a month ago, and she brought the paper—the News of the World I think it was—with her."

"Yes," said Varick shortly. "Yes—go on, Panton. What was in the advertisement?"

"The advertisement simply asked for information about you and your doings, past and present, and offered a reward for any information of importance. It was very oddly worded. What I should call an amateur advertisement. Mrs. Bilton came up to consult me as to whether she should write in answer to it. Of course I strongly advised her to do nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact"—Dr. Panton chuckled—"I have reason to believe she did write, but I need hardly say that, as far as she was concerned, nothing came of it!"

"I wish you could remember exactly how the advertisement was worded?" said Varick. It was clear that he felt very much disturbed.

"I'm sorry I didn't keep a copy of it; all I can tell you is that it asked for information concerning the past life and career of Lionel Varick, sometime of Redsands and Chichester."

"Chichester?" repeated Varick mechanically.

The name of the Sussex cathedral town held for him many painful, sordid memories. His first wife, the woman whose very existence he believed unknown to everyone who now knew him, with the exception of Blanche Farrow, had been a Chichester woman. It was there that they had lived in poverty and angry misery during the last few weeks of her life.

"Yes, that's all I remember—but I've put it more clearly than the advertisement did."

"What an extraordinary thing!" muttered Varick.

"I don't know that it's so very extraordinary. It was that woman Pigchalke's doing, obviously. As I told you the last time we met, I felt that she would stick at nothing to annoy you. She's quite convinced that you're an out-and-out villain."

Dr. Panton laughed. He really couldn't help it. Varick was such a thoroughly good fellow!

"I wonder," said Varick hesitatingly, "if I could get a copy of that Sunday paper? I feel that it's the sort of thing that ought to be stopped—don't you, Panton?"

"I'm quite sure it didn't appear again in the same paper, or I should have heard of it again. That one particular copy did end by going the whole round of Redsands. I went on hearing about it for, I should think,—well, right up to when I left home."

A rush of blind, unreasoning rage was shaking Varick. Curse the woman! What a brute she must be, to take his money, and go on annoying him in this way. "I wish you'd written and told me about it when it happened," he said sombrely.

The doctor looked at him, distressed. "I'm sorry I didn't, if you feel like that about it!" he exclaimed. "But you were so put out when I told you of the woman's having come to see me, and it was so obvious that the advertisement came from her, that I thought I'd say nothing about it. I wouldn't have told you now, only that you mentioned her."

Varick saw that his friend was very much disturbed. He made a determined effort over himself. "Never mind," he said, trying to smile. "After all, it's of no real consequence."

"I don't know if you'll find it any consolation to be told that that sort of thing is by no means uncommon," said Panton reflectively. "People, especially women, whose minds for any reason have become just a little unhinged, often take that sort of strange dislike to another human being. Sometimes for no reason at all. Every medical man would tell you of half-a-dozen such cases within his own knowledge. Fortunately, such half-insane people generally choose a noted man—the Prime Minister, for instance, or whoever happens to be very much in the public eye. If the persecution becomes quite intolerable there's a police-court case—or the individual is quite properly certified as insane."

And then something peculiar and untoward happened to Lionel Varick. The words rose to his lips: "That horrible woman haunts me—haunts me! I can never get rid of her—she seems always there—"

Had he uttered those words aloud, or had he not? He glanced sharply round, and then, with relief, he made up his mind that he had not uttered them, for the man sitting by his side was looking straight before him, with a pleased, interested expression on his plain, intelligent face.

Varick pulled himself together. This would never do! He asked himself, with a touch of acute anxiety, whether it were possible that he was losing his nerve? He had always possessed the valuable human gift of being able to control, absolutely, his secret feelings and his emotions.

"Did I tell you that Miss Brabazon is here?" he asked carelessly.

And the other exclaimed: "I'm glad of that. I formed a tremendously high opinion of that girl last year. By the way, I was surprised to hear, quite by accident, the other day, that she's a lot of money. I don't quite know why, but I formed the impression that it was her friend who was well-to-do—didn't you?"

"I never thought about it," said Varick indifferently. "By the way, Miss Brabazon's old aunt, a certain Miss Burnaby, is here too. It's rather a quiet party, Panton; I hope you won't be bored."

"I'm never bored. Who else have you got staying with you?"

Varick ran over the list of his guests, only leaving out one, and, after a scarcely perceptible pause, he remedied the omission.

"Then there's Miss Farrow's niece; she was called after her aunt, so her real name is Blanche—"

"'Known to her friends as Bubbles,'" quoted Dr. Panton, with a cynical inflection in his voice.

"How do you know that?" exclaimed Varick.

"Because there was a portrait of the young lady in the Sketch last week. She seems to be a kind of feminine edition of the Admirable Crichton. She can act, dance, cook—and she's famed as a medium in the psychic world—whatever that may mean!"

"I see you know all about her," observed Varick, smiling.

But though he was smiling at his friend, his inner thoughts were grim thoughts. He was secretly repeating to himself: "Chichester, Chichester? How can she have got hold of Chichester?"

Dr. Panton went on: "I'm glad I'm going to meet this Miss Bubbles—I've never met that particular type of young lady before. Though, of course, it's not, as some people believe, a new type. There have always been girls of that sort in the civilized world."

"It's quite true that the most curious thing about Bubbles," said Varick thoughtfully, "is a kind of thought-reading gift. I fancy she must have inherited it from an Indian ancestress, for her great-great-grandfather rescued a begum on her way to be burnt on her husband's funeral pyre. He ultimately married her, and though she never came to England. Bubbles' father, a fool called Hugh Dunster, who's lost what little money he ever had, is one of her descendants. There's something just a little Oriental and strange in Bubbles' appearance."

"This is 'curiouser and curiouser,' as Alice in Wonderland used to say!" exclaimed Panton. "Do you think I could persuade Miss Bubbles to give an exhibition of her psychic gifts?"

The speaker uttered the word "psychic" with a very satiric inflection in his pleasant voice.

Varick smiled rather wryly. "You're quite likely to have an exhibition of them without asking for it! The first evening that my guests were here she held what I believe they call a seance, and as a result Miss Brabazon's uncle, old Burnaby, not only bolted from the room, but left Wyndfell Hall the next morning."

"What an extraordinary thing!"

"Yes," said Varick, "it was an extraordinary thing. I confess I can't explain Bubbles' gift at all. At this seance of hers she described quite accurately long dead men and women—"

"Are you sure of that, Varick?"

"Of course I am, for she described my own mother."

There was a pause.

"Being a very intelligent, quick girl, she naturally helps herself out as best she can," went on Varick reflectively.

"Then you're inclined to think her thought-reading is more or less a fraud?" cried Panton triumphantly.

"Less, rather than more, for she's convinced me that she sees into the minds of her subjects and builds up a kind of—of—"

"Description?" suggested the doctor.

"More than that—I was going to say figure. She described, as if she saw them standing there before her, people of whom she'd never even heard—and the descriptions were absolutely exact. But if you don't mind, Panton—"

He hesitated, and the other said, "Yes, Varick?"

"Well, I'd rather you leave all that sort of thing alone, as far as Bubbles Dunster is concerned. Both Miss Farrow and I are very anxious that she shouldn't be up to any more of her tricks while she's here. People don't half like it, you see. Even I didn't like it."

Somehow it was a comfort to Varick to talk freely about Bubbles to a stranger—Bubbles had got on his nerves. He would have given a good deal to persuade her to leave Wyndfell Hall; but he didn't know how to set about it. In a sense she was the soul of the party. The others all liked her. Yet he, himself, felt a sort of growing repugnance to her which he would have been hard put to it to explain. Indeed, the only way he could explain it—and he had thought a good deal about it the last few days—was that she undoubtedly possessed an uncanny power of starting into life images which had lain long dormant in his brain.

For one thing—but that, of course, might not be entirely Bubbles' fault—Milly, his poor wife, had become again terribly real to him. It was almost as if he felt her to be alive, say, in the next room—lying, as she had been wont to lie, listening for his footsteps, in the little watering place where they had spent the last few weeks of her life.

He could not but put down that unpleasant, sinister phenomenon to the presence of Bubbles, for he had been at Wyndfell Hall all the summer, and though the place had been Milly's birthplace—where, too, she had spent her melancholy, dull girlhood—no thought of her had ever come to disturb his pleasure in the delightful, perfect house and its enchanting garden. Of course, now and again some neighbour with whom he had made acquaintance would say a word to him indicating what a strange, solitary life the Faunceys, father and daughter, had led in their beautiful home, and how glad the speaker was that "poor Milly" had had a little happiness before she died. To these remarks he, Varick, would of course answer appropriately, with that touch of sad reminiscence which carries with it no real regret or sorrow.

But during the last few days it had been otherwise. He could not get Milly out of his mind, and he had come to feel that if this peculiar sensation continued, he would not be able to bring himself to stay on at Wyndfell Hall after the break-up of his present party.

This feeling of his dead wife's presence had first become intolerably vivid in the village school-room during the children's Christmas Day treat. At one time—so the clergyman had told him—Milly had had a sewing-class for the village girls in that very room; but the class had not been a success, and she had given it up after a few weeks. That was her only association with the ugly little building, and yet—and yet, once he had got well into his speech, he had suddenly felt her to be there—and it was not the gentle, fretful, adoring Milly he had known, but a Presence which seemed filled with an awful, clear-eyed knowledge of certain secret facts which his reasoning faculties assured him were only known to his own innermost self.



CHAPTER XI

A turn in the road brought them within sight of Wyndfell Hall, and—"What a singular, wonderful-looking old place!" exclaimed Dr. Panton.

And, indeed, there was something mysteriously alluring in the long, gabled building standing almost, as it were, on an island, among the high trees which formed a screen to the house on the north and east sides. It was something solemn, something appealing—like a melodious, plaintive voice from the long-distant past, out of that Old Country which was the England of six hundred years ago.

"You've no idea how beautiful this place is in summer, Panton—and yet the spring is almost more perfect. You must come again then, and make a really good, long stay."

"Span will enjoy a swim in the moat even now," said the doctor, smiling. They were going slowly over the narrow brick bridge, and so up to the deep-eaved porch.

A butler and footman appeared as if by magic, and the sound of laughing voices floated from behind them. There was a pleasant stir of life and bustle about the delightful old house, or so it seemed to the guest.

He jumped out of the car behind his host, then he turned round. "Span!" he called out. "Span!"

But the dog was still lying on the floor of the car, and he made no movement, still less any attempt to jump down.

"What an extraordinary thing!" exclaimed Span's master. "Come down, Span! Come down at once!"

He waited a moment; then he went forward and tried to drag the dog out. But Span resisted with all his might. He was a big spaniel, and Panton, from where he stood, had no purchase on him. "There's something wrong with him," he said with concern. "Wait a moment, Varick—if you don't mind."

He got up into the car again and patted Span's head. The dog turned his head slowly, and licked his master's hand.

"Now, Span, jump out! There's a good dog!"

But Span never moved.

At last Panton managed to half-shove, half-tumble the dog out. "I've only known him behave like this once before," he muttered, "and that was with a poor mad woman whom I was once compelled to put up in my house for two or three days. He simply wouldn't go near her! He behaved just as he's doing now."

Span was lying on the ground before them, inert, almost as if dead. But his eyes, his troubled, frightened eyes, were very much alive.

Varick went off into the house for a moment. He had never liked dogs; and this ugly brute's behaviour, so he told himself, annoyed him very much.

Span got up and shook himself, almost as if he had been asleep.

Panton bent down. "Span," he said warningly, "be a good dog and behave yourself! Remember what happened to you after the poor lunatic lady went away."

And Span looked up with that peculiar, thoughtful look which dogs sometimes have of understanding everything which is being said to them.

Span had been beaten—a very rare experience for him—after the mad lady had left the doctor's house. But whether he understood or not the exact reference to that odious episode in his happy past life, there was no doubt that Span did understand that his master regarded him as being in disgrace; and it was a very subdued dog that walked sedately into the hall where most of the party were gathered together ready to greet the new-comer.

Miss Farrow was particularly cordial, and so was Helen Brabazon. She and Dr. Panton had become real friends during Mrs. Varick's illness, and they had been at one in their affection for, and admiration of, Lionel Varick during that piteous time. To the doctor (though he would not have admitted it, even to himself, for the world) there had been something very repugnant about the dying woman. Though still young in years, she might have been any age; and she was so fretful and so selfish, hardly allowing her husband out of her sight, while utterly devoted to him, of course, in her queer, egoistic way—and to Miss Brabazon, her kind new friend. The doctor had soon realized that it was the pity which is akin to love which had made Helen become so attached to poor Milly Varick—intense pity for the unhappy soul who was going to lose her new-found happiness. Milly's pathetic cry: "I never had a girl friend before. You can't think how happy it makes me!" had touched Helen to the heart.

Standing there, in that noble old room hung with some beautiful tapestries forming a perfect background to the life and colour which was now filling it, Panton was surprised to find how vividly those memories of last autumn came surging back to him. It must be owing to this meeting with Miss Brabazon—this reunion with the two people with whom he had gone through an experience which, though it so often befalls a kind and sympathetic doctor, yet never loses its poignancy—that he was thinking now so intensely of poor Mrs. Varick.

It was Helen Brabazon who had introduced the new-comer to Miss Farrow, for Varick had disappeared, and soon Dr. Panton was looking round him with interest and curiosity. Most of the people whom he knew to be staying at Wyndfell Hall were present, but not the girl his friend had described—not the girl, that is, whose portrait he had seen in the Sketch. Just as he was telling himself this, a door opened, and two people came through together—a tall, fair, smiling young man, and a quaint, slender figure, looking like a child rather than like a woman, whose pale, yet vivid little face was framed in thick, dark brown, bobbed hair, and whose large, bright eyes gleamed mischievously.

Bubbles had chosen to put on this afternoon a long, rose-red knitted jumper over a yellow skirt, and she looked as if she had stepped out from some ancient Spanish religious procession.

"Bubbles," called out her aunt, "this is Dr. Panton. Come and be introduced to him."

Then something very odd happened. Varick joined his new guest at the very same moment that the girl came forward with hand outstretched and a polite word of welcome on her lips; but, before she could speak, Span, who had been behaving with so sedate a dignity that the people present were scarcely conscious of his existence, gave a sudden loud and horrible howl.

His master, disregarding Bubbles' outstretched hand, seized the dog by the collar, rushed with him to the door giving on to the porch, and thrust him out into the cold and darkness.

Span remained quite quiet when on the wrong side of the door. There might have been no dog there.

"I'm so sorry," said Panton apologetically, as he came again towards the tea-table. "I can't think what's the matter with the poor brute. He's almost perfect manners as a rule."

He turned to Miss Brabazon, who laughingly exclaimed: "Yes, indeed! Span's such an old friend of mine that I feel quite hurt. I thought he would be sure to take some notice of me; but I didn't even know he was there till he set up that awful, unearthly howl."

"I think it's very cruel to have turned the dog out into the cold," Bubbles said in her quick, decided way. "There's nothing about dogs I don't know, Doctor—Doctor—"

"—Panton," he said shortly.

"Oh, Panton? May I go out to him, Dr. Panton?" There was a challenge in her tone.

Panton answered stiffly: "By all means. But Span's not always pleasant with complete strangers; and he prefers men, Miss Dunster."

"I think he'll be all right with me."

Bubbles went and opened the door, and a moment later they heard her low, throaty voice talking caressingly to the dog. Span whined, but in a gentle, happy way.

"He's quite good now," she called out triumphantly.

Varick turned to the company: "Will you forgive me for a moment?" he said. "I forgot to say a word to my chauffeur about our plans for to-morrow." And as he went through one door, Bubbles, followed by the now good and repentant Span, appeared through another.

"He's a darling," she cried enthusiastically. "One of the nicest dogs I've ever met!"

She sat down, and endeared herself further to Span by giving him a large piece of cake.

And Dr. Panton, looking at the charming group—for the lithe, dark-haired girl in her brilliant, quaint garment, and the dog over which she was bending, made a delightful group—told himself grudgingly that Miss Bubbles was curiously attractive: far more attractive-looking than he would have thought her to be by the portrait published in the Sketch—though even that had been sufficiently arresting to remain in his mind for two or three days. Was there really something Eastern about her appearance? He would never have thought it but for those few words of Varick's. Many English girls have that clear olive complexion, those large, shadowy dark eyes, which yet can light up into daring, fun, and mischief.

But, alas! the story of Span—even this early chapter of the story of his stay at Wyndfell Hall—had not a happy ending. As Varick came forward again among his guests, Span once more set up that sharp, uncanny howl, and this time he cringed and shivered, as well as howled.

Span's master, with an angry exclamation, again dragged the now resisting dog across to the door which led into the outer porch. After he had shut the door, and Span's howls were heard subsiding, he turned to the others apologetically. "I'm really awfully sorry," he exclaimed. "If this sort of thing goes on I'll have to send him home to-morrow."

Poor Panton looked thoroughly put out and annoyed. But Bubbles came to his rescue—Bubbles and the young man whom the doctor now knew to be Bill Donnington.

"Come on, Bill! We'll take him round to the kitchen. You don't mind, do you?"

Span's owner shook his head; devoted though he was to his dog, he felt he could well do without Span for a while.