“Yes,” he said, “I have not left it for nearly forty years.  Since I left the ’Varsity.  One is young there, you know, and one has opportunities; but I make no excuses, no excuses.”  And the door slipping its rusty latch, came drifting on the draught into the room, and the long carpet flapped and the hangings upon the walls, then the draught fell rustling away and the door slammed to again.

“Ah, Marianne,” he said, “we have a guest to-night.  Mr. Linton.  This is Marianne Gib.”  And everything became clear to me.  “Mad,” I said to myself, for no one had entered the room.

The rats ran up the length of the room behind the wainscot ceaselessly, and the wind unlatched the door again and the folds of the carpet fluttered up to our feet and stopped there, for our weight held it down.

“Let me introduce Mr. Linton,” said my host—­“Lady Mary Errinjer.”

The door slammed back again.  I bowed politely.  Even had I been invited I should have humoured him, but it was the very least that an uninvited guest could do.

This kind of thing happened eleven times, the rustling, and the fluttering of the carpet and the footsteps of the rats, and the restless door, and then the sad voice of my host introducing me to phantoms.  Then for some while we waited while I struggled with the situation; conversation flowed slowly.  And again the draught came trailing up the room, while the flaring candles filled it with hurrying shadows.  “Ah, late again, Cicely,” said my host in his soft, mournful way.  “Always late, Cicely.”  Then I went down to dinner with that man and his mind and the twelve phantoms that haunted it.  I found a long table with fine old silver on it and places laid for fourteen.  The butler was now in evening dress, there were fewer draughts in the dining-room, the scene was less gloomy there.  “Will you sit next to Rosalind at the other end,” Richard said to me.  “She always takes the head of the table, I wronged her most of all.”  I said, “I shall be delighted.”

I looked at the butler closely, but never did I see by any expression of his face or by anything that he did any suggestion that he waited upon less than fourteen people in the complete possession of all their faculties.  Perhaps a dish appeared to be refused more often than taken but every glass was equally filled with champagne.  At first I found little to say, but when Sir Richard speaking from the far end of the table said, “You are tired, Mr. Linton,” I was reminded that I owed something to a host upon whom I had forced myself.  It was excellent champagne and with the help of a second glass I made the effort to begin a conversation with a Miss Helen Errold for whom the place upon one side of me was laid.  It came more easy to me very soon, I frequently paused in my monologue, like Mark Anthony, for a reply, and sometimes I turned and spoke to Miss Rosalind Smith.  Sir Richard at the other end talked sorrowfully on, he spoke as a condemned man might speak to his judge,