nd the moon will help us," the other said, "for it will be full in the
early hours of the morning, and this kind of elemental-being is always
most active at the period of full moon. Hence, you see, the clue
furnished by your diary."

So it was finally settled. Colonel Wragge would provide the materials
for the experiment, and we were to meet at midnight. How he would
contrive at that hour--but that was his business. I only know we both
realised that he would keep his word, and whether a pig died at
midnight, or at noon, was after all perhaps only a question of the sleep
and personal comfort of the executioner.

"Tonight, then, in the laundry," said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch the
plan; "we three alone--and at midnight, when the household is asleep and
we shall be free from disturbance."

He exchanged significant glances with our host, who, at that moment, was
called away by the announcement that the family doctor had arrived, and
was ready to see him in his sister's room.

For the remainder of the afternoon John Silence disappeared. I had my
suspicions that he made a secret visit to the plantation and also to the
laundry building; but, in any case, we saw nothing of him, and he kept
strictly to himself. He was preparing for the night, I felt sure, but
the nature of his preparations I could only guess. There was movement in
his room, I heard, and an odour like incense hung about the door, and
knowing that he regarded rites as the vehicles of energies, my guesses
were probably not far wrong.

Colonel Wragge, too, remained absent the greater part of the afternoon,
and, deeply afflicted, had scarcely left his sister's bedside, but in
response to my inquiry when we met for a moment at tea-time, he told me
that although she had moments of attempted speech, her talk was quite
incoherent and hysterical, and she was still quite unable to explain the
nature of what she had seen. The doctor, he said, feared she had
recovered the use of her limbs, only to lose that of her memory, and
perhaps even of her mind.

"Then the recovery of her legs, I trust, may be permanent, at any rate,"
I ventured, finding it difficult to know what sympathy to offer. And he
replied with a curious short laugh, "Oh yes; about that there can be no
doubt whatever."

And it was due merely to the chance of my overhearing a fragment of
conversation--unwillingly, of course--that a little further light was
thrown upon the state in which the old lady a