“I felt—­to us.”

“Fancy.”

“Probably.  You didn’t feel it?”

“I?  Oh, I scarcely know what I felt.  I must say, though, that squatting in the dark, and saying nothing for such an age, and—­and all the rest of it, doesn’t exactly toughen one’s nerves.  That little demon of a Rip quite gave me the horrors when he started barking.  What fools we are!  I should think nothing of mounting a dangerous horse, or sailing a boat in rough weather, or risking my life as we all do half our time in one way or another.  Yet a dog and a dark room give me the shudders.  Funny, Val, isn’t it?”

Valentine answered, “If it is a dog and a dark room.”

“What else can it possibly be?” Julian said with an accent of rather unreasonable annoyance.

“I don’t know.  But I did draw the curtain completely over the door to-night.  Julian, I am getting interested in this.  Perhaps—­who knows?—­in the end I shall have your soul, you mine.”

He laughed as he spoke; then added: 

“No, no; I don’t believe in such an exchange; and, Julian, I scarcely desire it.  But let us go on.  This gives a slight new excitement to life.”

“Yes.  But it is selfish of you to wish to keep your soul to yourself.  I want it.  Well, au revoir, Val; to-morrow night.”

“Au revoir.”

After Julian had gone Valentine went back into the drawing-room and stood for a long while before the “Merciful Knight.”  He had a strange fancy that the picture of the bending Christ protected the room from the intrusion of—­what?

He could not tell yet.  Perhaps he could never tell.

CHAPTER V

THE THIRD SITTING

“Isn’t it an extraordinary thing,” Julian said, on the following evening, “that if you meet a man once in London you keep knocking up against him day after day?  While, if—­”

“You don’t meet him, you don’t.”

“No.  I mean that if you don’t happen to be introduced to him, you probably never set eyes on him at all.”

“I know.  But whom have you met to-day?”

“Marr again.”

“That’s odd.  He is beginning to haunt you.”

“I met him at my club.  He has just been elected a member.”

“Did he make any more inquiries into our sittings?”

“Rather.  He talked of nothing else.  He’s an extraordinary fellow, extraordinary.”

“Why?  What is he like?”

“In appearance?  Oh, the sort of chap little pink women call Satanic; white complexion showing blue where he shaves, big dark eyes rather sunken, black hair, tall, very thin and quiet.  Very well dressed.  He is that uncanny kind of a man who has a silent manner and a noisy expression.  You know what I mean?”

“Yes, perfectly.”

“I think he’s very morbid.  He never reads the evening papers.”

“That proves it absolutely.  Does he smoke?”