nce worshipped had stolen, and that the power of the
Ju-ju and the Druids' stone lay in their power of focussing those vague
and wandering threads of remembrance.

To-night this power seemed regained, for she passed from the contemplation
of concrete images into a vague and pleasant state, an absolute idleness
of the intellect akin to that which people call daydreaming.

With her cloak wrapped round her she sat, elbows on knees and her chin in
the palms of her hands giving herself up to Nothing before starting to
resume her way to the house.

Sitting like this she suddenly started and turned. Some one had called
her:

"Phylice!"

For a moment she fancied that it was a real voice, and then she knew that
it was only a voice in her head, one of those sounds we hear when we are
half asleep, one of those hails from dreamland that come now as the
ringing of a bell that never has rung, or the call of a person who has
never spoken.

She rose up and resumed her way, striking along the glen to the open park,
yet still the memory of that call pursued her.

"Phylice!"

It seemed Mr. Pinckney's voice, it _was_ his voice, she was sure of that
now, and she amused herself by wondering why his voice had suddenly popped
up in her head. She had been thinking about him more than about any one
else that evening and that easily accounted for the matter. Fancy had
mimicked him--yet why did Fancy use her name and clothe it in Pinckney's
voice?--and it was distinctly a call, the call of a person who wishes to
draw another person's attention.

Pinckney had never called her by her name and she felt almost irritated at
the impertinence of the phantom voice in doing so.

This same irritation made her laugh when she realised it. Then the idea
that Byrne might lock the hall door before she could get back drove every
other thought away and she began to run, her shadow running before her
over the moonlit grass.

Half way across the sward, which was divided from the grass land proper by
a Ha-ha, she heard the stable clock striking eleven.

CHAPTER IV

When Phyl withdrew from the dining-room, Hennessey filled his glass with
port, Pinckney, who took no wine, lit a cigarette and the two men drew
miles closer to one another in conversation.

They were both relieved by the withdrawal of the girl, Hennessey because
he wanted to talk business, Pinckney because her presence had affected him
like a wet blanket.

His first impression o