range events of the night before.

He lived again the long hour he had spent at the Casino. He could almost
smell the odd, sweet, stuffy smell of the Baccarat Room, and there rose
before him its queer, varied inmates. He visioned distinctly Sylvia
Bailey as he had suddenly seen her, sitting before the green cloth,
with her money piled up before her, and a look of eager interest and
absorption on her face.

There had always been in Sylvia something a little rebellious, a touch of
individuality which made her unlike the other women he knew, and which
fascinated and attracted him. She was a woman who generally knew her own
mind, and who had her own ideas of right and wrong. Lying there, he
remembered how determined she had been about those pearls....

Chester's thoughts took a softer turn. How very, very pretty she had
looked last evening--more than pretty--lovelier than he had ever seen
her. There seemed to be new depths in her blue eyes.

But Chester was shrewd enough to know that Sylvia had felt ashamed to be
caught by him gambling--gambling, too, in such very mixed company. Well,
she would soon be leaving Lacville! What a pity those friends of hers had
given up their Swiss holiday! It would have been so jolly if they could
have gone on there together.

He got tired of lying in bed. What a long night, as well as a very
short night, it had been! He rose and made his way down to the primitive
bath-room. It would be delightful to have any sort of bath, and the huge
zinc basin had its points--

As Chester went quickly back to his room, instead of feeling refreshed
after his bath, he again experienced the disagreeable sensation that he
was not alone. This time he felt as if he were being accompanied by an
invisible presence. It was a very extraordinary and a most unpleasant
feeling, one which Chester had never experienced before, and it made him
afraid--afraid he knew not of what.

Being the manner of man he was, he began to think that he must be
ill--that there must be something the matter with his nerves. Had he been
at home, in Market Dalling, he would have gone to a doctor without loss
of time.

Long afterwards, when people used to speak before him of haunted houses,
Bill Chester would remember the Pension Malfait and the extraordinary
sensations he had experienced there--sensations the more extraordinary
that there was nothing to account for them.

But Chester never told anyone of his experiences, and indeed t