aid:

"'"Mistress Anne! I feel quite positive that my aunt was at that
cupboard last night at twelve o'clock, taking some of those drops."

"'The old woman showed no surprise. A strange, deadly pallor seemed to
extinguish the last sparks of life in her wrinkled face, and she said
softly, "Has the Feast of the Invention of the Cross come round
again?--No; it's long past the third of May."

"'I didn't feel able to ask anything further, and the old woman went
away. I dressed as fast as I could, left my breakfast untouched, and
ran as quickly as possible into the open air to try and shake off
the dreadful feeling of unreality--as if everything was a horrible
dream--which had taken possession of me again. That night, without my
having given any orders on the subject, Mistress Anne made up my bed in
a nice cheerful room facing the street. I have never said another word
to her about what I heard and saw, far less to Falter. Do me the favour,
you two, to say nothing about it either, or there will only be a lot of
annoying tittle-tattle, and endless troublesome questions, and, very
likely, all the bother of a formal investigation by the Psychological
Society. Even in the room where I sleep now, I feel pretty certain I
can hear the footsteps and the sobs every night at midnight. However, I
mean to put up with it the best way I can for a short time, and then
try to get rid of the house as quietly as possible, and look out for
another.'

"When Alexander had finished, there was a short silence. Then Marzell
said:

"'All this about your old aunt haunting the house is strange and
uncanny enough. But, firmly as I believe that an extraneous Spiritual
Principle, or "Entity," has the power of making itself felt by, or
perceptible to, us in some way or other, this adventure of yours
strikes one as being very largely tinctured with a purely material
element. The footsteps, and the sighing and sobbing, might pass well
enough: but that the poor old aunt deceased should go and swallow
stomachic drops, as she did when she was feeling a little out of sorts
in this life--well, it's too much like the lady who, when she revisited
the glimpses of the moon after death, used to scrabble outside the
window like a cat shut out by accident.'

"'Now that,' said Severin, 'is just one of the regular, stereotyped
ways in which we go wilfully mystifying ourselves. We admit that an
extraneous Spiritual Principle can affect us (apparently, at all
events