call Miss Garth, get my dressing-case, which is on the table, and bring it to me. She will answer your mother's questions about breakfast. Any hour that suits her will suit me. And let us all look as pleasant as though there wasn't such a thing as a ghost within a thousand miles of Elmdale."

The chance phrase reminded him of the elder Walker's words: "Elmdale is eight miles from Nuttonby, and thousands from every other town." Yet, remote as was this moor-edge hamlet, a sordid tragedy had been enacted there. Someone had died in that house under circumstances which called imperatively for a most searching inquiry. A daylight phantom had replaced the grim specter which credulous villagers were wont to see on a summer's eve. Was it his business to exorcise the evil spirit? He did not know. He closed his eyes resolutely to that side of the difficulty. Marguérite Garth must be sent on her way first; then he would make a guarded investigation into the history of the man whom Mrs. Jackson had seen "hanging near the clock."

When summoned to the dining-room he received a shock. Man-like, he had pictured his unbidden guest as he had seen her the previous night. Now he was greeted by a smiling and prepossessed young lady, who had extracted a muslin gown from the stock in the wardrobe, and whose piquant face was crowned by a wealth of brown hair. The presence of woman's chief adornment naturally enhanced the girl's remarkable beauty. In defiance, too, of certain modern laws of hygiene—or perhaps because she couldn't help it, being built that way—she had a very slim waist. Last night she would have passed in a crowd for a boy of slender physique; this morning she was adorably feminine. During fifteen years of strenuous work in the East, Armathwaite had never given a thought to the opposite sex. He had seen little of his country-women, for the Indian frontier is not a haven for married officers, and he personally would have regarded a wife as a positive hindrance to his work; so it was a singular fact that his first reflection now should be that a certain Percy Whittaker, whom, in all probability, he would never set eyes on, was a person to be envied. He almost scowled at the absurdity of the notion, and the girl, extending her hand, caught the fleeting expression.

"Aren't you pleased to see me?" she cried. "I made sure you were aching for my appearance. Betty tells me you were up and about before she arrived, and I have been an unconscionable time dressing; you must be pining for breakfast."

"You shall not rob me of a chance of saying that I am glad to see you by that 

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