ollective hypnotism?
Yes, that was the expression he had used. Some such power Bubbles
certainly possessed, and perhaps to-day she had chosen to exercise it by
recalling to the minds of those simple village folk the half-forgotten
figure of the one-time mistress of Wyndfell Hall. If she had really done
this, Bubbles had played an ungrateful, cruel trick on Lionel Varick.

Blanche at last dropped off to sleep, but Pegler's ridiculous yet
sinister story had spoilt the pleasant memories of her day, and even her
night, for she slept badly, and awoke unrefreshed.

CHAPTER X

There are few places in a civilized country more desolate than a big,
empty country railway station: such a station as that at Newmarket--an
amusing, bustling sight on a race day; strangely still and deserted,
even on a fine summer day, when there's nothing doing in the famous
little town; and, in the depth of winter, extraordinarily forlorn. The
solitariness and the desolation were very marked on the early afternoon
of New Year's Eve which saw Varick striding up and down the deserted
platform waiting for Dr. Panton, and Dr. Panton's inseparable companion,
a big, ugly, intelligent spaniel called Span.

Varick had more than one reason to be grateful to the young medical man
with whom Fate had once thrown him into such close contact; and so this
last spring, when Panton had had to be in London for a few days, Varick
had taken a deal of trouble to ensure that the country doctor should
have a good time. But his own pleasure in his friend's company had been
somewhat spoilt by something Panton had then thought it right to tell
him. This something was that his late wife's one-time companion, Miss
Pigchalke, had gone to Redsands, and, seeking out the doctor, had tried
to force him to say that poor Mrs. Varick had been ill-treated--or if
not exactly ill-treated, then neglected--by her husband, during her last
illness.

"I wouldn't have told you, but that I think you ought to know that the
woman has an inexplicable grudge against you," he had said.

"Not inexplicable," Varick had answered quietly. "For Julia Pigchalke
first came as governess to Wyndfell Hall when my wife was ten years old,
and she stayed on with her ultimately as companion--in fact as more
friend than companion. Of course I queered her pitch!"

And then, rather hesitatingly, he had gone on to tell Dr. Panton that he
was now paying his enemy an annuity of a hundred a year. This had b