He unlocked the door and looked out, staring this way and that along the empty passage.  But no, in spite of the now-risen sun, it was still early morning; the Pension Malfait was sunk in sleep.

Chester went back to bed.  He felt tired, disturbed, uneasy; sleep was out of the question; so he lay back, and with widely-open eyes, began to think of Sylvia Bailey and of the strange events of the night before.

He lived again the long hour he had spent at the Casino.  He could almost smell the odd, sweet, stuffy smell of the Baccarat Room, and there rose before him its queer, varied inmates.  He visioned distinctly Sylvia Bailey as he had suddenly seen her, sitting before the green cloth, with her money piled up before her, and a look of eager interest and absorption on her face.

There had always been in Sylvia something a little rebellious, a touch of individuality which made her unlike the other women he knew, and which fascinated and attracted him.  She was a woman who generally knew her own mind, and who had her own ideas of right and wrong.  Lying there, he remembered how determined she had been about those pearls....

Chester’s thoughts took a softer turn.  How very, very pretty she had looked last evening—­more than pretty—­lovelier than he had ever seen her.  There seemed to be new depths in her blue eyes.

But Chester was shrewd enough to know that Sylvia had felt ashamed to be caught by him gambling—­gambling, too, in such very mixed company.  Well, she would soon be leaving Lacville!  What a pity those friends of hers had given up their Swiss holiday!  It would have been so jolly if they could have gone on there together.

He got tired of lying in bed.  What a long night, as well as a very short night, it had been!  He rose and made his way down to the primitive bath-room.  It would be delightful to have any sort of bath, and the huge zinc basin had its points—­

As Chester went quickly back to his room, instead of feeling refreshed after his bath, he again experienced the disagreeable sensation that he was not alone.  This time he felt as if he were being accompanied by an invisible presence.  It was a very extraordinary and a most unpleasant feeling, one which Chester had never experienced before, and it made him afraid—­afraid he knew not of what.

Being the manner of man he was, he began to think that he must be ill—­that there must be something the matter with his nerves.  Had he been at home, in Market Dalling, he would have gone to a doctor without loss of time.

Long afterwards, when people used to speak before him of haunted houses, Bill Chester would remember the Pension Malfait and the extraordinary sensations he had experienced there—­sensations the more extraordinary that there was nothing to account for them.

But Chester never told anyone of his experiences, and indeed there was nothing to tell.  He never saw anything, he never even heard anything, but now and again, especially when he was lying awake at night and in the early morning, the lawyer felt as if some other entity was struggling to communicate with him and could not do so....