that my husband is dead," she said. "He died yesterday night,
about ten o'clock, in hospital at Madeira, did he not?"

The seaman stared aghast. "No, marm, he died eight days ago at sea, and
we had to bury him out there, for we lay in a belt of calm, and could
not say when we might make the land."

Well, those are the main facts about the death of John Vansittart, and
his appearance to his wife somewhere about lat. 35 N. and long. 15 W. A
clearer case of a wraith has seldom been made out, and since then it has
been told as such, and put into print as such, and endorsed by a learned
society as such, and so floated off with many others to support the
recent theory of telepathy. For myself, I hold telepathy to be proved,
but I would snatch this one case from amid the evidence, and say that
I do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart, but John
Vansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the moonlight
out of the depths of the Atlantic. It has ever been my belief that some
strange chance--one of those chances which seem so improbable and yet so
constantly occur--had becalmed us over the very spot where the man had
been buried a week before. For the rest, the surgeon tells me that the
leaden weight was not too firmly fixed, and that seven days bring about
changes which fetch a body to the surface. Coming from the depth to
which the weight would have sunk it, he explains that it might well
attain such a velocity as to carry it clear of the water. Such is my
own explanation of the matter, and if you ask me what then became of
the body, I must recall to you that snapping, crackling sound, with the
swirl in the water. The shark is a surface feeder and is plentiful in
those parts.

THE GREAT BROWN-PERICORD MOTOR

It was a cold, foggy, dreary evening in May. Along the Strand blurred
patches of light marked the position of the lamps. The flaring shop
windows flickered vaguely with steamy brightness through the thick and
heavy atmosphere.

The high lines of houses which lead down to the Embankment were all
dark and deserted, or illuminated only by the glimmering lamp of the
caretaker. At one point, however, there shone out from three windows
upon the second floor a rich flood of light, which broke the sombre
monotony of the terrace. Passers-by glanced up curiously, and drew each
other's attention to the ruddy glare, for it marked the chambers of
Francis Pericord, the inventor and electrical engine