these last few days have been exciting enough. I must confess that
they have left me with a queer sort of nervousness. I find myself
listening intently sometimes,--conscious, as it were, of the influence or
presence of some indefinite danger."

"Very interesting," the Professor murmured. "Spiritualism, as an exact
science, has always interested me very much."

Lady Ashleigh made a little grimace.

"Don't encourage George," she begged. "He is much too superstitious, as it
is."

There was a brief silence. The port had been placed upon the table and
coffee served. The servants, according to the custom of the house, had
departed. The great apartment was empty. Even Quest was impressed by some
peculiar significance in the long-drawn-out silence. He looked around him
uneasily. The frowning regard of that long line of painted warriors seemed
somehow to be full of menace. There was something grim, too, in the sight
of those empty suits of armour.

"I may be superstitious," Lord Ashleigh said, "but there are times,
especially just lately, when I seem to find a new and hateful quality in
silence. What is it, I wonder? I ask you but I think I know. It is the
conviction that there is some alien presence, something disturbing lurking
close at hand."

He suddenly rose to his feet, pushed his chair back and walked to the
window, which opened level with the ground. He threw it up and listened.
The others came over and joined him. There was nothing to be heard but the
distant hooting of an owl, and farther away the barking of some farmhouse
dog. Lord Ashleigh stood there with straining eyes, gazing out across the
park.

"There was something here," he muttered, "something which has gone. What's
that? Quest, your eyes are younger than mine. Can you see anything
underneath that tree?"

Quest peered out into the grey darkness.

"I fancied I saw something moving in the shadow of that oak," he muttered.
"Wait."

He crossed the terrace, swung down on to the path, across a lawn, over a
wire fence and into the park itself. All the time he kept his eyes fixed
on a certain spot. When at last he reached the tree, there was nothing
there. He looked all around him. He stood and listened for several
moments. A more utterly peaceful night it would be hard to imagine. Slowly
he made his way back to the house.

"I imagine we are all a little nervous to-night," he remarked. "There's
nothing doing out there."

They strolled about for an ho