never quite lost, till, in time, wood and stone and paper become something much more than this, and radiate back to us, if we can only catch it, the wisdom and courage and love and evil they have so long absorbed. You believe all this, Perkins?”

Her eyes opened wide, filling with a strange light. She was no longer an impassive, middle-aged woman, the servant of the house, but a creature vibrant with feeling, as one who has unleashed her soul. Her lips moved inaudibly, as at some mystic shrine.

“Wisdom and courage and love and evil,” she repeated in an awed whisper. “Yes, yes, that’s it, all of it. Last time it was evil in Beech Lodge. The evil had been here for months and years, growing stronger and stronger. It began when Mr. Millicent got back from the East, and it never stopped. I tried to silence it but failed, and then it silenced him. The evil was too strong.”

“But it’s over now,” said Derrick steadily.

“No, it’s here yet, in this room,” she pointed to the portrait. “He knows. He’s been trying to tell me but cannot.”

“From whom does it come?”

“Wait, sir; you’re not ready yet. Nothing is quite ready, but it will be soon. That’s why you came. The others will come, too.”

He experienced a remarkable sensation of having lost all physical weight, and seemed to catch a low singing note as of a myriad of tiny voices, the far murmur of those who approached from the unknown. He could see Perkins, still motionless, and feel his own body, but this had no significance. As the wireless operator tunes his set till it abstracts from the invisible only that which is carried by its own individual wave-length and remains unaffected by all others, so Derrick began to pick up a series of vibrations that in a queer and remote fashion he recognized, but could not as yet interpret. Then he caught his own tones.

“So this air is full of that which can never die or disappear, and may save or destroy as it is written. It destroyed Millicent and may be the undoing of others unless it is brought to naught.”

“How else could it be?” Perkins covered her pale face, bent her head, and disappeared.

Derrick stared at the portrait, his features transfigured with something that was not altogether wonder. It was all unreal yet enormously real. What surprised him most was that he should be admitted so readily to 

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