Vane in his clerical
garb; he only salaamed again and welcomed Vane back to the house of his
father and his mother. That was Koda Bux's way of putting it in his
Indian fashion. He would have put it otherwise if he had known what such
a welcome meant to him.

"This is the place of the _debacle_," said Vane to Ernshaw when they met
in the Den after they had had their wash; "there's the hearthrug--yes,
and there's the same spirit-case. It is a curious thing, Ernshaw, but
since then, or rather, since that other ghastly collapse at Oxford, I've
lectured in club rooms reeking with alcohol; I've gone with you as you
know where everyone was sodden with the gin and stank of it, and even
into bars where you could smell nothing but liquor and unwashed
humanity, and yet that intoxication has never come back to me."

"Of course not," said Ernshaw; "you have prayed and fought since then,
and as you have won your battles your prayers have been answered."

"Yes," said Vane, "I hope you are right; in fact, I am sure you are. I
don't suppose a sniff at that whiskey decanter would affect me any more
than a few drops of eau de cologne on my handkerchief."

As he said this he went towards the spirit-case on the little old oak
sideboard and took out the whiskey decanter.

"Take care, Vane!" said Ernshaw. "I hope you are not forgetting the old
doctrine of association. Remember what you were saying just now about
this room. There is a sense, you know, in which places are really
haunted."

"My dear Ernshaw, I believe you are even more ideal than I am," laughed
Vane, as he took the stopper out and raised the decanter to his
nostrils. As he did so the front door bell tinkled, and the hand of a
practised footman played a brief fantasia on the knocker. In the middle
of an inhalation Vane stopped and put the bottle down; but even as he
did so the mysterious force of association against which Ernshaw had
warned him had begun to work upon his imagination. The familiar room,
with its pictures and furniture and simple ornaments, the feel of the
cut-glass decanter, which was the same one that he had held in his hand
that fatal night, the smell of the whiskey--all these elements were
rapidly combining in those few moments to produce an effect partly
mental and partly physical which might have more than justified
Ernshaw's sudden fear.

"Ah, there are the mysterious guests, I suppose!" he said, putting the
decanter back into the case. "I suppose y