“I thought you had gone to pay calls with Lady Atherley?”

“Is it likely?  Look here, Lindy, it is quite hot out of doors.  Come, and let me tug you up the hill to meet Cissy coming home from the station, and then I promise you a rare treat.”

Certainly to meet Mrs. de Noel anywhere might be so considered, but I did not ask if that was what he meant.  It was milder; one felt it more at every step upward.  The sun, low as it was, shone warmly as well as brilliantly between the clouds that he had thrust asunder and scattered in wild and beautiful disorder.  It was one of those incredible days in early spring, balmy, tender, which our island summer cannot always match.

We went on till we reached Beggar’s Stile.

“Sit down,” said Atherley, tossing on to the wet step a coat he carried over his arm.  “And there is a cigarette; you must smoke, if you please, or at least pretend to do so.”

“What does all this mean?  What are you up to, George?”

“I am up to a delicate psychical investigation which requires the greatest care.  The medium is made of such uncommon stuff; she has not a particle of brass in her composition.  So she requires to be carefully isolated from all disturbing influences.  I allow you to be present at the experiment, because discretion is one of your strongest points, and you always know when to hold your tongue.  Besides, it will improve your mind.  Cissy’s story is certain to be odd, like herself, and will illustrate what I am always saying that—­Here she is.”

He went forward to meet and to stop the carriage, out of which, at his suggestion, Mrs. de Noel readily came down to join us.

“Do not get up, Mr. Lyndsay,” she called out as she came towards us, “or I will go away.  I don’t want to sit down.”

“Sit down, Lindy,” said Atherley sharply, “Cissy likes tobacco in the open air.”

She rested her arms upon the gate and looked downwards.

“The dear dear old river!  It makes me feel young again to look at it.”

“Cissy,” said Atherley, his arms on the gate, his eyes staring straight towards the opposite horizon, “tell us about the ghost; were you frightened?”

There was a certain tension in the pause which followed.  Would she tell us or not?  I almost felt Atherley’s rebound of satisfaction as well as my own at the sound of her voice.  It was uncertain and faint at first, but by degrees grew firm again, as timidity was lost in the interest of what she told: 

“Last night I sat up with Mrs. Molyneux, holding her hand till she fell asleep, and that was very late, and then I went to the dressing-room, where I was to sleep; and as I undressed, I thought over what Mr. Lyndsay had told us about the ghost; and the more I thought, the more sad and strange it seemed that not one of those who saw it, not even Aunt Eleanour, who is so kind and thoughtful, had had one pitying thought for it.  And we who heard about it were just the