not debate the question, either--he
simply thanked his stars it was gone!

It was with considerable reluctance that he resumed his way up the
path, but the daylight at the end of the trail looked inviting and
reassuring compared to the twilight in the woods and he covered the
distance to the spot where the monk had stood in a sort of a dogtrot.

It was here that he made a fresh discovery as he collided rather
heavily with some obstruction in the path, an obstruction that gave way
as his body impinged upon it, but that nearly tripped him as it fell
between his legs.

He picked it up, but did not pause to examine it. The light ahead
still lured and he continued his flight toward it, bearing his find
with him.

He drew a deep breath of thankfulness as he finally emerged from the
woods into the comforting aura of the kitchen garden; his eyes rested
upon and were wonderfully soothed by a row of peaceful cabbages. Never
before had he noticed how beautiful a cabbage can be, but to a man
fresh from dalliance with a ghost there is something very steadying and
sustaining in a glimpse of that most stolid and solid of vegetables.

There was a granite bowlder near-by on which he dropped gratefully for
a minute's rest. It was while reaching for a handkerchief to pat his
moist forehead that he was reminded of the object he had picked up and
still carried. He looked at it now, and found that it was a heavy
stick which must have been thrust firmly into the center of the path in
the woods; one end of it was split, and into the cleft had been thrust
a bit of folded paper--brown paper, he noted, of cheap quality, but
what really took his eye as he drew it free was his own name in
typewritten letters on the outside.

Evidently this was intended for him, and he was about to open it to see
what message it might contain when the sound of hurrying steps from the
direction of the path diverted him from his purpose. Whatever the
contents of the paper might be, they were for him alone. Prompted by
an instinct for secrecy which was part of his psychological cosmos, he
thrust the missive into the breast-pocket of his coat and turned--with
a little tremor from his nerves--to see who was coming.

It was a woman who burst from the shelter of the trees--a woman in some
haste and quite obviously in some alarm. She was panting from her
exertions, for she ceased running only when she reached the open, as
Varr had done before her. A close-f