erto so irreproachably imperturbable, I had
rarely seen a man in such a state of passive panic. His dark face was
blanched to the hue of dirty parchment and his forehead dewed with
cold perspiration. I mentally predicted an early resignation in the
household of Sir Lionel Barton. Homopoulo might be an excellent butler,
but his superstitious Greek nature was clearly incapable of sustaining
existence beneath the same roof with a family ghost, hoary though the
specter's antiquity might be.

Where the skeleton shadows of the fruit trees lay beneath me on the
fresh green turf my fancy persistently fashioned a black-clad figure
flitting from tree to tree. Sleep indeed was impossible. Once I
thought I detected the howling of the distant leopards.

Somewhere on the floor above me, Nayland Smith, I knew, at that moment
would be restlessly pacing his room, the exact situation of which I
could not identify, because of the quaint, rambling passages whereby
one approached it. It was in regard to Karamaneh, however, that my
misgivings were the keenest. Already her position had been strange
enough, in those unfamiliar surroundings, but what tremors must have
been hers now in the still watches of the night, following the ghostly
manifestations which had so dramatically interrupted Nayland Smith's
story, I dared not imagine. She had been allotted an apartment
somewhere upon the ground floor, and Mrs. Oram, whose motherly
interest in the girl had touched me deeply, had gone with her to her
room, where no doubt her presence had done much to restore the girl's
courage.

Graywater Park stood upon a well-wooded slope, and, to the southwest,
starting above the trees almost like a giant Spanish priest, showed a
solitary tower. With a vague and indefinite interest I watched it. It
was Monkswell, an uninhabited place belonging to Sir Lionel's estate
and dating, in part, to the days of King John. Flicking the ash from
my cigarette, I studied the ancient tower wondering idly what deeds
had had their setting within its shadows, since the Angevin monarch,
in whose reign it saw the light, had signed the Magna Charta.

This was a perfect night, and very still. Nothing stirred, within or
without Greywater Park. Yet I was conscious of a definite disquietude
which I could only suppose to be ascribable to the weird events of
the evening, but which seemed rather to increase than to diminish.

I tossed the end of my cigarette out into the darkness, det