questioningly.

"You told me that during her lifetime you were on the best terms of
friendship with this poor lady, and yet that on her dead face there was
a look of hatred? How do you account for that?"

He looked questioningly, penetratingly, into the girl's distressed face.

Sir Lyon had always prided himself on his self-command and perfect
self-control, and yet he would have given almost anything for a really
honest answer to this question.

And poor Helen did give him an honest answer--honest, that is, from her
own simple-hearted point of view. "I can't account for it!" she
exclaimed. "But I am sure it was there. I felt the hatred coming out
from her towards me. And oh, Sir Lyon, it was horrible!"

"Try and think it was not Mrs. Varick's spirit," he said impressively.
"Try and tell yourself that it was either a dream, a waking phantom of
your brain, or--or--"

"Or what?" asked Helen eagerly.

But there are thoughts, questions, suspicions that no human being
willingly puts into words.

* * * * *

During the last few days Sir Lyon had become convinced that Lionel
Varick had resolved in his powerful, unscrupulous mind to make Helen
Brabazon his wife. It was in vain that he argued with himself that the
question of Miss Brabazon's future concerned him not at all. He found
himself again and again, when watching those two, giving a great deal of
uneasy thought to the matter. Now and again he would remind himself that
Varick had been no greater an adventurer than many a man who, when
utterly impecunious, has married an heiress amid the hearty approval and
acclamation of most of the people about them. And Varick could not now
be regarded as impecunious; he was a man of substance, though no doubt
even his present income would seem as nothing compared with the Brabazon
fortune.

Sir Lyon was ashamed of his growing distaste, even dislike, of his
courteous host. It was as if in the last few days a pit had been dug
between them. It was not pleasant to him to be accepting the hospitality
of a man whom he was growing to dislike and suspect more and more every
day. And yet though he could have made a hundred excuses to leave
Wyndfell Hall, he stayed on, refusing to inquire too closely into the
reason.

At times he tried to persuade himself that he was keenly interested in
the problem presented by Bubbles Dunster. The girl was beyond question a
most rare and exceptional medium. At one tim