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the conversation took a turn which produced a remarkable effect upon my host and hostess. I cannot recall what it was which started the topic of the supernatural, but it ended in my showing them that the abnormal in psychical experiences was a subject to which I had, like many neurologists, devoted a great deal of attention. I concluded by narrating my experiences when, as a member of the Psychical Research Society, I had formed one of a committee of three who spent the night in ahaunted house. Our adventures were neither exciting nor convincing, but, such as it was, the story appeared to interest my auditors in a remarkable degree. They listened with an eager silence, and I caught a look of intelligence between them which I could not understand. Lady Holden immediately afterwards rose and left the room.
    Sir Dominick pushed the cigar-box over to me, and we smoked for some little time in silence. That huge, bony hand of his was twitching as he raised it with his cheroot to his lips, and I felt that the man’s nerves were vibrating like fiddle-strings. My instincts told me that he was on the verge of some intimate confidence, and I feared to speak lest I should interrupt it. At last he turned towards me with a spasmodic gesture like a man who throws his last scruple to the winds.
    ‘From the little that I have seen of you it appears to me, Dr Hardacre,’ said he, ‘that you are the very man I have wanted to meet.’
    ‘I am delighted to hear it, sir.’
    ‘Your head seems to be cool and steady. You will acquit me of any desire to flatter you, for the circumstances are too serious to permit of insincerities. You have some special knowledge upon these subjects, and you evidently view them from that philosophical standpoint which robs them of all vulgar terror. I presume that the sight of an apparition would not seriously discompose you?’
    ‘I think not, sir.’
    ‘Would even interest you, perhaps?’
    ‘Most intensely.’
    ‘As a psychical observer, you would probably investigate it in as impersonal a fashion as an astronomer investigates a wandering comet?’
    ‘Precisely.’
    He gave a heavy sigh.
    ‘Believe me, Dr Hardacre, there was time when I could have spoken as you do now. My nerve was a byword in India. Even the Mutiny never shook it for an instant. And yet you see what I am reduced to—the most timorous man, perhaps, in all this county of Wiltshire. Do not speak too bravely upon this subject, or you may,find yourself subjected to as long-drawn a test as I am—a test which can only end in the madhouse or the grave.’
    I waited patiently until he should see fit to go farther in his confidence. His preamble had, I need not say, filled me with interest and expectation.
    ‘For some years, Dr Hardacre,’ he continued, ‘my life and that of my wife have been made miserable by a cause which is so grotesque that it borders upon the ludicrous. And yet familiarity has never made it more easy to bear—on the contrary, as time passes my nerves become more worn and shattered by the constant attrition.
    ‘If you have no physical fears, Dr Hardacre, I should very much value your opinion upon this phenomenon which troubles us so.’
    ‘For what it is worth my opinion is entirely at your service. May I ask the nature of the phenomenon?’
    ‘I think that your experiences will have a higher evidential value if you are not told in advance what you may expect to encounter. You are yourself aware of the quibbles of unconscious cerebration and subjective impressions with which a scientific sceptic may throw a doubt upon your statement. It would be as well to guard against them in advance.’
    ‘What shall I do, then?’
    ‘I will tell you. Would you mind following me this way?’ He led me out of the dining-room and down a long passage until we came to a terminal door. Inside there was a large, bare room fitted as a laboratory, with numerous scientific instruments and bottles. A shelf ran along one side, upon which