customed to lodge her bicycle.

Here she was joined by an immense Irish wolf-hound, who came from the
region of the stables to greet her.

She stopped to fondle him. She and Cork were old friends. As she finally
returned to the carriage-drive in front of the house, he accompanied
her.

The front door stood open, and she went in through its Gothic archway,
glad to escape from the glare outside. The great hall she thus entered
had been the chapel in the days of the monks, and it had the clammy
atmosphere of a vault. Passing in from the brilliant sunshine, Olga felt
actually cold.

It was dark also, the only light, besides that from the open door,
proceeding from a stained-glass window at the farther end--a gruesome
window representing in vivid colours the death of St. John the Baptist.

A carved oak chest, long and low, stood just within, and upon this the
girl seated herself, with the great dog close beside her. Her ten-mile
bicycle ride in the heat had tired her.

There was no sound in the house save the ticking of an invisible clock.
It might have been a place bewitched, so intense and so uncanny was the
silence, broken only by that grim ticking that sounded somehow as if it
had gone on exactly the same for untold ages.

"What a ghostly old place it is, Cork!" Olga remarked to her companion.
"And you actually spend the night here! I can't think how you dare."

In response to which Cork smiled with a touch of superiority and gave
her to understand that he was too sensible to be afraid of shadows.

They were still sitting there conversing, with their faces to the
sunlit garden, when there came the sound of a careless footfall and
Violet Campion, her riding-whip dangling from her wrist, strolled round
the corner of the house, and in at the open door.

She was laughing as she came, evidently at some joke that clung to her
memory.

"Look at me!" she said. "I'm all foam. But I've conquered his majesty
King Devil for once. He's come back positively abject. My dear, do get
up! You're sitting on my coffin!"

Olga got up quickly. "Violet, what extraordinary things you think of!"

The other girl laughed again, and stooping raised the oaken lid. "It's
not in the least extraordinary. Look inside, and picture to yourself how
comfy I shall be! You can come and see me if you like, and spread
flowers--red ones, mind. I like plenty of colour."

She dropped the lid again carelessly, and took a gold cigarette-case
from he