ut it was very easily appeased, and before
I could have made the thing clear to her she was back in the library,
fingering her hat and listening, as it seemed to me, to everything but
my voice.

I did not understand it.

Making one more effort I came up close to her and impetuously cried out:

"Don't you see what this does to the phantasm you professed to have seen
yourself once in this very spot? It proves it a myth, a product of your
own imagination, something which it must certainly be impossible for
you ever to fear again. That is why I made the search which has ended
in this discovery. I wanted to rid you of your forebodings. Do assure me
that I have. It will be such a comfort to me--and how much more to the
mayor!"

Her lack-luster eyes fell; her fingers closed on the hat whose feathers
she had been trifling with, and, lifting it, she moved softly into the
reception-room and from there into the hall and up the front stairs. I
stood aghast; she had not even heard what I had been saying.

By the time I had recovered my equanimity enough to follow, she
had disappeared into her own room. It could not have been in a very
comfortable condition, for there were evidences about the hall that
it was being thoroughly swept. As I endeavored to pass the door, I
inadvertently struck the edge of a little taboret standing in my way. It
toppled and a little book lying on it slid to the floor; as I stooped
to pick it up my already greatly disconcerted mind was still further
affected by the glimpse which was given me of its title. It was this:

THE ECCENTRICITIES OF GHOSTS AND COINCIDENCES
SUGGESTING SPIRITUAL INTERFERENCE

Struck forcibly by a coincidence suggesting something quite different
from spiritual interference, I allowed the book to open in my hand,
which it did at this evidently frequently conned passage:

A book was in my hand and a strong light was shining on it and
on me from a lamp on a near-by table. The story was interesting
and I was following the adventures it was relating, with eager
interest, when suddenly the character of the light changed, a
mist seemed to pass before my eyes and, on my looking up, I saw
standing between me and the lamp the figure of a man, which
vanished as I looked, leaving in my breast an unutterable dread
and in my memory the glare of two unearthly eyes whose menace
could mean but one thing--death.

The next day I received news of a fata