her childish heart over his death.

"One day, five years later, when Dolly was seventeen, I was writing
letters in my library. That very morning my wife and Dolly had gone to
New York en route for Europe. Dolly was going to school in Paris for a
year. Business prevented my accompanying them even as far as New York,
but Gilbert Chester, my wife's brother, was going with them. They were
to sail on the _Aragon_ the next morning.

"I had written steadily for about an hour. At last, growing tired, I
threw down my pen and, leaning back in my chair, was on the point of
lighting a cigar when an unaccountable impulse made me turn round. I
dropped my cigar and sprang to my feet in amazement. There was only
one door in the room and I had all along been facing it. I could have
sworn nobody had entered, yet there, standing between me and the
bookcase, was a man--and that man was my brother Charles!

"There was no mistaking him; I saw him as plainly as I see you. He was
a tall, rather stout man, with curly hair and a fair, close-clipped
beard. He wore the same light-grey suit which he had worn when bidding
us good-bye on the morning of his departure for New Orleans. He had no
hat on, but wore spectacles, and was standing in his old favourite
attitude, with his hands behind him.

"I want you to understand that at this precise moment, although I was
surprised beyond measure, I was not in the least frightened, because I
did not for a moment suppose that what I saw was--well, a ghost or
apparition of any sort. The thought that flashed across my bewildered
brain was simply that there had been some absurd mistake somewhere,
and that my brother had never died at all, but was here, alive and
well. I took a hasty step towards him.

"'Good heavens, old fellow!' I exclaimed. 'Where on earth have you
come from? Why, we all thought you were dead!'

"I was quite close to him when I stopped abruptly. Somehow I couldn't
move another step. He made no motion, but his eyes looked straight
into mine.

"'Do not let Dolly sail on the _Aragon_ tomorrow,' he said in slow,
clear tones that I heard distinctly.

"And then he was gone--yes, Jack, I know it is a very conventional way
of ending up a ghost story,| but I have to tell you just what
occurred, or at least what I thought occurred. One moment he was there
and the next moment he wasn't. He did not pass me or go out of the
door.

"For a few moments I felt dazed. I was wide awake and in my right