room left. A half-nervous,
half-superstitious thrill crept over him as he suddenly grasped the
handle of the door and threw it open. The leaping light of his fire
revealed its emptiness: no one was there! He lit the candle and peered
behind the curtains and furniture and under the bed; the room was as
vacant and undisturbed as when he left it.

Had it been a trick of his senses or a bona-fide apparition? He had
never heard of a ghost at Glenbogie--the house dated back some
fifty years; Sir John Macquoich's tardy knighthood carried no such
impedimenta. He looked down wonderingly on the flower in his buttonhole.
Was there something uncanny in that innocent blossom? But here he was
struck by another recollection, and examined the keyhole of his door.
With the aid of the tortoiseshell hairpin he dislodged the paper he had
forgotten. It was only a thin spiral strip, apparently the white outer
edge of some newspaper, and it certainly seemed to be of little service
as a protection against the thorns of the rose-stalk. He was holding it
over the fire, about to drop it into the blaze, when the flame revealed
some pencil-marks upon it. Taking it to the candle he read, deeply
bitten into the paper by a hard pencil-point: "At half-past one."
There was nothing else--no signature; but the handwriting was NOT Mrs.
MacSpadden's!

Then whose? Was it that of the mysterious figure whom he had just seen?
Had he been selected as the medium of some spiritual communication, and,
perhaps, a ghostly visitation later on? Or was he the victim of some
clever trick? He had once witnessed such dubious attempts to relieve the
monotony of a country house. He again examined the room carefully, but
without avail. Well! the mystery or trick would be revealed at half-past
one. It was a somewhat inconvenient hour, certainly. He looked down at
the baleful gift in his buttonhole, and for a moment felt inclined
to toss it in the fire. But this was quickly followed by his former
revulsion of resentment and defiance. No! he would wear it, no matter
what happened, until its material or spiritual owner came for it. He
closed the door and returned to the drawing-room.

Midway of the staircase he heard the droning of pipes. There was dancing
in the drawing-room to the music of the gorgeous piper who had marshaled
them to dinner. He was not sorry, as he had no inclination to talk, and
the one confidence he had anticipated with Mrs. MacSpadden was out of
the quest