l danger to her general well-being. What had
happened the afternoon before had frightened her. She had been entirely
unconscious of the awful phenomena which had taken place, and she was
becoming seriously alarmed at her own increasing power of piercing the
veil which hangs between the seen and the unseen. What she had told
Donnington during their talk in the old darkened church had been true:
she often felt herself companioned by entities who boded ill, if not to
herself, then to those about her. Since yesterday, also, there had hung
heavily over her mind a premonition that she, personally, was in danger.
Now she told herself that perhaps the peculiar, disturbing sensation had
only been a forerunner of James Tapster's unexpected offer of marriage.

* * * * *

"What would you say to our all going out for a walk?" Luncheon was just
over, and Varick was facing his guests. The only one missing was Dr.
Panton, who had gone up to his room, saying he had some work to do.

"I'm afraid it must be very wet and slushy," said Blanche Farrow
dubiously. It had snowed in the night, and now a thaw had set in.

She had an almost catlike dislike of wet or dirt; on the other hand, she
was one of those people who are generally willing to put aside their own
wishes in favour of what those about them wish to do; and she saw that
for some reason or other Lionel Varick wanted this suggestion of his to
be carried out.

"I can take you to a place," he exclaimed, "where I think we shall find
it dry walking even to-day. It's a kind of causeway, or embankment"--he
turned to Helen Brabazon--"which some people say was built by the
Romans."

"I think a walk would be very nice," she agreed.

Helen did not look like her usual cheerful, composed self. The
experience which had befallen her the day before still haunted her mind
to the exclusion of everything else. Perhaps a good long walk would make
her feel a different creature, and chase that awful image of Milly
Varick in her grave-clothes from her brain.

And so in the end the whole party started off, with the exception of
Miss Burnaby and Dr. Panton. Bubbles tried hard to get out of going on
what she frankly said seemed to her "a stupid expedition," but
Donnington had a theory that the open air would do her good, and as for
Varick, he exclaimed in a good-humoured but very determined tone: "If
_you_ won't come, Bubbles, I give the whole thing up!" In a lower voic