advice, and accept the annuity.'

Sophia Brooks, with that mild obstinacy of which I had received
indications during her recital, slowly shook her head.

'You have been very kind to listen for so long,' she said, and then,
with a curt 'Good-day!' turned and left the room. On the sheet of
paper underneath her address, I wrote this prophecy: 'Before the week
is out, I predict that Lord Rantremly himself will call to see me.'

* * * * *

Next morning, at almost the same hour that Miss Brooks had arrived the
day before, the Earl of Rantremly's card was brought in to me.

His lordship proved to be an abrupt, ill-mannered, dapper business
man; purse-proud, I should call him, as there was every reason he
should be, for he had earned his own fortune. He was doubtless equally
proud of his new title, which he was trying to live up to, assuming
now and then a haughty, domineering attitude, and again relapsing into
the keen, incisive manner of the man of affairs; shrewd financial
sense waging a constant struggle with the glamour of an ancient name.
I am sure he would have shone to better advantage either as a
financier or as a nobleman, but the combination was too much for him.
I formed an instinctive dislike to the man, which probably would not
have happened had he been wearing the title for twenty years, or had I
met him as a business man, with no thought of the aristocratic honour
awaiting him. There seemed nothing in common between him and the
former holder of the title. He had keen, ferrety eyes, a sharp
financial nose, a thin-lipped line of mouth which indicated little of
human kindness. He was short of stature, but he did not possess the
club-foot, which was one advantage. He seated himself before I had
time to offer him a chair, and kept on his hat in my presence, which
he would not have done if he had either been a genuine nobleman or a
courteous business man.

'I am Lord Rantremly,' he announced pompously, which announcement was
quite unnecessary, because I held his card in my hand.

'Quite so, my lord. And you have come to learn whether or no I can lay
the ghost in that old castle to the north which bears your name?'

'Well, I'm blessed!' cried his lordship, agape. 'How could you guess
that?'

'Oh, it is not a guess, but rather a choice of two objects, either of
which might bring you to my rooms. I chose the first motive because I
thought you might prefer to arrange the second pro