“I’ll be good,” Uncle Robert rejoined.  “But if I really must snort, may I silently slip away?”

Chris nodded.  His hand had already begun to work.  There had been no preliminary twitchings nor tentative essays at writing.  At once his hand had started off, and Planchette was moving swiftly and smoothly across the paper.

“Look at him,” Lute whispered to her aunt.  “See how white he is.”

Chris betrayed disturbance at the sound of her voice, and thereafter silence was maintained.  Only could be heard the steady scratching of the pencil.  Suddenly, as though it had been stung, he jerked his hand away.  With a sigh and a yawn he stepped back from the table, then glanced with the curiosity of a newly awakened man at their faces.

“I think I wrote something,” he said.

“I should say you did,” Mrs. Grantly remarked with satisfaction, holding up the sheet of paper and glancing at it.

“Read it aloud,” Uncle Robert said.

“Here it is, then.  It begins with ‘beware’ written three times, and in much larger characters than the rest of the writing.  Beware!  Beware!  Beware!  Chris Dunbar, I intend to destroy you.  I have already made two attempts upon your life, and failed.  I shall yet succeed.  So sure am I that I shall succeed that I dare to tell you.  I do not need to tell you why.  In your own heart you know.  The wrong you are doing—­And here it abruptly ends.”

Mrs. Grantly laid the paper down on the table and looked at Chris, who had already become the centre of all eyes, and who was yawning as from an overpowering drowsiness.

“Quite a sanguinary turn, I should say,” Uncle Robert remarked.

“I have already made two attempts upon your life,” Mrs. Grantly read from the paper, which she was going over a second time.

“On my life?” Chris demanded between yawns.  “Why, my life hasn’t been attempted even once.  My!  I am sleepy!”

“Ah, my boy, you are thinking of flesh-and-blood men,” Uncle Robert laughed.  “But this is a spirit.  Your life has been attempted by unseen things.  Most likely ghostly hands have tried to throttle you in your sleep.”

“Oh, Chris!” Lute cried impulsively.  “This afternoon!  The hand you said must have seized your rein!”

“But I was joking,” he objected.

“Nevertheless . . .”  Lute left her thought unspoken.

Mrs. Grantly had become keen on the scent.  “What was that about this afternoon?  Was your life in danger?”

Chris’s drowsiness had disappeared.  “I’m becoming interested myself,” he acknowledged.  “We haven’t said anything about it.  Ban broke his back this afternoon.  He threw himself off the bank, and I ran the risk of being caught underneath.”

“I wonder, I wonder,” Mrs. Grantly communed aloud.  “There is something in this. . . .  It is a warning. . . .  Ah!  You were hurt yesterday riding Miss Story’s horse!  That makes the two attempts!”