palaces, arcades and bowers of clipped
hedges and pleached trees with slender fountains set meetly in green
shade; while some again were crowded with swaying Gothic figures of
saints and kings and warriors and angels, all far too beautiful,
thought Austin, to have ever lived. Yet surely there must be some
prototypes of all these wonderful conceptions somewhere. There must be
a world--if we could only find it--where loveliness that we only know
as pictured exists in actual reality. What a dream-like hall it was,
on that still summer afternoon. Yet there was something uncanny about
it too. St Aubyn had stepped out of sight, and Austin left by himself
began to experience a very extraordinary sensation. He felt that he
was not alone. The immense chamber seemed _full of presences_. He
could see nothing, but he felt them all about him. The place was
thickly populated, but the population was invisible. Everything looked
as empty as it had looked when the door was first thrown open, and yet
it was really full of ghostly palpitating life, crowded with the
spirits of bygone men and women who had held stately revels there
three hundred years before. He was not frightened, but a sense of awe
crept over him, rooting him to the spot and imparting a rapt
expression to his face. Did he hear anything? Wasn't there a faint
rustling sound somewhere in the air behind him? No. It must have been
his fancy. Everything was as silent as the grave.

He turned and saw St Aubyn close beside him. "The place is haunted!"
he exclaimed in a husky voice.

"What makes you think so?" asked St Aubyn, without any intonation of
surprise.

"I feel it," he replied.

"Come out," said the other abruptly. "It's curious you should say
that. Other people seem to have felt the same. I'm not so sensitive
myself. You're looking pale. Let's go into the library and have a cup
of tea."

The hot stimulant revived him, and he was soon talking at his ease
again. But the curious impression remained. It seemed to him as if he
had had an experience whose effects would not be easily shaken off. He
had seen no ghosts, but he had felt them, and that was quite enough.
The sensation he had undergone was unmistakable; the hall was full of
ghosts, and he had been conscious of their presence. This, then, was
apparently what Lubin had alluded to. Oh, it was all real
enough--there was no room left for any doubt whatever.

It was a quarter to five when he took leave of his enter