yn. "Do you?"

"Yes. Hush! No--it was nothing. But I feel it--all round me. The most
curious sensation. The room's full. Some of them are behind me. Don't
you feel a wind?"

"Indeed I don't," said St Aubyn. "There's not a breath stirring
anywhere."

They were standing side by side. Austin gently put out his right hand
and grasped St Aubyn's left.

"_Now_ don't you feel anything?" he asked.

"Yes--a sort of thrill. A tingling in my arm," replied St Aubyn.
"That's rather strange. But it comes from you, not from----" He
paused.

"It comes _through_ me," said Austin.

They stood for a few seconds in unbroken silence. Then St Aubyn
suddenly withdrew his hand. "This is unhealthy!" he said, with a touch
of abruptness. "You must be highly magnetic. Your organism is
'sensitive,' and that's why you experience things that I don't."

"Oh, why did you break the spell?" cried Austin, regretfully. "What
harm could it have done you? You said yourself just now that nothing
happens that isn't natural. And this is natural enough, if one could
only understand the way it works."

"Many things are natural that are not desirable," returned St Aubyn,
walking up and down. "It's quite natural for people to go to sea, but
it makes some of them sea-sick, nevertheless, and they had better stay
on shore. It's all a matter of temperament, I suppose, and what is
pleasant for you is something that my own instincts warn me very
carefully to avoid."

Austin drew his handkerchief across his eyes, as though beginning to
come back to the realities of life. "I daresay," he said, vaguely.
"But it's very restful here. The air seems to make me sleepy. I almost
think--"

At this point a servant appeared at the other end of the hall, and St
Aubyn went to see what he wanted. The next moment he returned, with
quickened steps.

"Come away with you--you and your spooks!" he cried, cheerfully,
taking Austin by the arm. "Here's an old aunt of mine suddenly dropped
from the skies, and clamouring for a cup of tea. We must go in and
entertain her. She's all by herself in the library."

"I shall be very glad," said Austin. "You go on first, and I'll be
with you in two minutes."

So St Aubyn strode off to welcome his elderly relative, and when
Austin came into the room he found his friend stooping over a very
small, very dowdy old lady dressed in rusty black silk, with a large
bonnet rather on one side, who was standing on tiptoe, the better to
peck at