n one side of him was a common, with bushes of flaming
gorse and clumps of heather, and little ragged plantations of pine
trees; and on his right, a low, old-fashioned house, a lawn of velvet,
and a great cedar tree; a walled garden with straight, box-bordered
paths, a garden full of old-fashioned flowers whose perfume seemed
suddenly to be tearing at some newly-awakened part of the man. He sat
up. He stared at the little seat among the rose bushes. Surely he was
back again, back again in that strange world, where the flavor of
existence was a different thing, where his head had touched the clouds,
where all the gross cares and pleasures of his everyday life had fallen
away! Was it the perfume of the roses, of the stocks, which had
suddenly appealed to some dormant sense of beauty? Or had he indeed
passed back for a moment into that world concerning which he had
sometimes strange, half doubtful thoughts? He leaned forward, and his
eyes wandered feverishly among the hidden places of the garden. The
seat was empty. Propped up against the hedge was a notice board: "This
House to Let."

"What on earth are you staring at?" Mrs. Burton demanded, with some
acerbity. "A silly little place like that would be no use to us. I
don't know what the people who've been living there could have been
thinking about, to let the garden get into such a state. Fancy a nasty
dark tree like that, too, keeping all the sun away from the house! I'd
have it cut down if it were mine. What on earth are you looking at,
Alfred Burton?"

He turned towards her, heavy-eyed.

"Somewhere under that cedar tree," he said, "a man's soul was buried. I
was wondering if its ghost ever walked!"

Mrs. Burton lifted the speaking-tube to her lips.

"You can take the next turning home, John," she ordered.

The man's hand was mechanically raised to his hat. Mrs. Burton leaned
back once more among the cushions.

"You and your ghosts!" she exclaimed. "If you want to sit there,
thinking like an owl, you'd better try and think of some of your funny
stories for to-night. You'll have to sit next that stuck-up Mrs.
Bomford, and she takes a bit of amusing."

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton
by E. Phillips Oppenheim

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOUBLE LIFE ***

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