on in silence for a few moments.

"It would be interesting to know," observed Sir Lyon suddenly, "what
Miss Farrow conceives to be the truth as to her niece's peculiar gifts.
I fancy, from something she told me the other day, that she hasn't the
slightest belief in psychic phenomena, I wonder if she feels the same
after what happened yesterday and last night?"

"I can tell you exactly what Miss Farrow thinks," interposed Varick. "I
had a word or two with her about it all this morning, after we'd
examined the servants in the white parlour."

"What _does_ she think," asked Sir Lyon. He had always been interested
in Blanche Farrow, and, in a way, he was fond of her.

"She thinks," said Varick, a little hesitatingly, "that Bubbles, in
addition to her extraordinary thought-reading gift, has inherited from
her Indian ancestress a power of collectively hypnotizing an
audience--of making people see things that she wants them to see. That's
rather awkwardly expressed, but it's the best I can do."

"I quite understand," broke in the doctor. "You mean the sort of power
which certain Indian fakirs undoubtedly possess?"

"Yes," said Varick. "And, as I said just now Bubbles has got Indian
blood in her veins. One of her ancestors actually did marry an Indian
lady of high degree, and Bubbles is descended from one of the children
of that marriage."

"I think that may account for the potency of her gift," said Sir Lyon
thoughtfully, "though, of course, many Europeans have had, and now
possess, these curious powers."

"But though, in a sense, spiritualism is no new thing, even those who
believe in it admit that it has never led to anything," observed Varick
musingly.

"Very rarely, I admit; but still, sometimes even a dream has contained a
revelation of sorts. Thus it is on positive record that a dream revealed
the truth as to what was called the Murder of the Red Barn."

"Can I take it that you do believe the dead return?" asked the doctor
abruptly.

"I think," said Sir Lyon deliberately, "that certain of the dead desire
ardently to return--not always from the best motives. As to whether they
themselves are permitted to come back, or whether they are able to use
other entities to carry out that purpose, I am still in doubt."

As he spoke he saw a curious change come over Lionel Varick's face. The
rather set smile with which he had been listening to the discussion gave
way to an odd expression of acute unease. But at this pa