expecting to be
overtaken by horror of the supernatural, but my self persisted in
being humanly indignant, exactly as though it had been the victim of
a practical joke. It was in great pains and upheavals--that I felt in
every fibre but its dominant idea, to put it coarsely, was to get back
a bit of its own. By this I knew that I might go forward if I could find
the way.

After a few days it occurred to me to go to the office of Mr. J.M.M.
Baxter--the solicitor who had sold Holmescroft to M'Leod. I explained I
had some notion of buying the place. Would he act for me in the matter?

Mr. Baxter, a large, greyish, throaty-voiced man, showed no enthusiasm.
"I sold it to Mr. M'Leod," he said. "It 'ud scarcely do for me to start
on the running-down tack now. But I can recommend--"

"I know he's asking an awful price," I interrupted, "and atop of it he
wants an extra thousand for what he calls your clean bill of health."

Mr. Baxter sat up in his chair. I had all his attention.

"Your guarantee with the house. Don't you remember it?"

"Yes, yes. That no death had taken place in the house since it was
built: I remember perfectly."

He did not gulp as untrained men do when they lie, but his jaws moved
stickily, and his eyes, turning towards the deed boxes on the wall,
dulled. I counted seconds, one, two, three--one, two, three up to ten. A
man, I knew, can live through ages of mental depression in that time.

"I remember perfectly." His mouth opened a little as though it had
tasted old bitterness.

"Of course that sort of thing doesn't appeal to me." I went on. "I don't
expect to buy a house free from death."

"Certainly not. No one does. But it was Mr. M'Leod's fancy--his wife's
rather, I believe; and since we could meet it--it was my duty to my
clients at whatever cost to my own feelings--to make him pay."

"That's really why I came to you. I understood from him you knew the
place well."

"Oh, yes. Always did. It originally belonged to some connections of
mine."

"The Misses Moultrie, I suppose. How interesting! They must have loved
the place before the country round about was built up."

"They were very fond of it indeed."

"I don't wonder. So restful and sunny. I don't see how they could have
brought themselves to part with it."

Now it is one of the most constant peculiarities of the English that in
polite conversation--and I had striven to be polite--no one ever does or
sells anything for mere money's