e
he added: "Naughty as you are, you're the life and soul of the party."

And thus it was to please Varick, rather than Donnington, that Bubbles
started on what was to be to all those that took part in it a memorable
walk.

Poor Donnington! The young man felt alarmed and perplexed concerning
Bubbles' general condition. He knew something that had shocked and
startled her had happened the day before, but when he had tried to find
out what it was, she had snubbed him.

Like so many people wiser and cleverer than himself, Donnington found it
impossible to make up his mind concerning psychic phenomena. When
kneeling by Bubbles' side in the dimly-lit church he had accepted,
almost without question, her own explanation of her strange and sinister
gift, but by now he had argued himself out of the belief that such
things could be in our work-a-day world.

There was someone else of the party who was also giving a great deal of
anxious thought to Bubbles' uncanny powers. Blanche Farrow, like Helen
Brabazon, could not banish from her mind the experience which had
befallen her in the hall last evening. Every time she looked at Lionel
Varick there rose before her that terrible vision of the two unquiet
spirits who had stood, sentinel-wise, on either side of him....

Again and again in the long watches of a wakeful night, Blanche
had-assured herself that what she had seen was no more real than is a
vivid dream. She had further told herself, taking comfort in the
telling, that the power possessed by Bubbles was now understood, and
accounted for, by those learned men who make a scientific study of
hypnotism. Yet, try as she would, she could not banish from her mind and
from her memory the unnerving experience.

They were crossing the moat bridge when there came a shout from the
house. They all stopped, to be joined, a minute later, by Dr. Panton.
"It's an extraordinary thing," he exclaimed, "I fully intended to give
up this afternoon to writing, but somehow I suddenly felt as if I _must_
look out of the window! You all looked so merry and bright that I have
thrown my work to the winds, and here I am, coming with you."

"I was rather counting on you to keep Miss Burnaby company."

Varick's tone was not very pleasant, and Panton for a moment regretted
he had come; but as he had passed through the hall he had seen the old
lady nodding over a book, and he was well aware that had he stayed
indoors, it would have been to work up in h