.

How would you feel if your piano suddenly began to play of itself? You
would be alarmed and afraid probably, not frightened of the piano, but
of the fact.

A door could not frighten you--but you would surely be alarmed at its
persistently opening, each time you shut, locked, and bolted it, if it
acted thus.

Of Burker I had no fear--but I was perturbed by the _fact_ that the dead
could ride with the living.

When I gave the order "Dismiss" at the end of the parade Burker rode
away, as he had always done, in the direction of his bungalow.

Returning to my lonely house, I sat me down and pondered this appalling
event that had come like a torrent, sweeping away familiar landmarks of
experience, idea, and belief. I was conscious of a dull anger against
Burker and then against God.

Why should He allow Burker to haunt me?...

Why should Evil triumph?...

_Was_ I haunted? Or was it, after all, but a hallucination--due to
grief, trouble, and the drug of the opiate?

I sat and brooded until I thought I could hear the voices of Burker and
Dolores in converse.

This I knew to be hallucination, pure and simple, and I went to see my
friend (if he will let me call him what he is in the truest and highest
sense) Major Jackson of the R.A.M.C.

He took me for a long ride, kept me to dinner, and manufactured a job
for me--a piece of work that would occupy and tire me.

He assured me that the Burker affair was pure hallucination and staked
his professional reputation that the image of Burker came upon my retina
from within and not from without. "The shock of the deaths of your wife
and your friend on consecutive days has unhinged you, and very naturally
so," he said.

Of course I did not tell him that I had killed Burker, though I
should have liked to do so. I felt I had no right to put him in the
position of having to choose between denouncing me and condoning a
murder--compounding a felony.

Nor did I see any reason for confessing to the Police what I had done
(even though Dolores was dead) and finishing my career on the scaffold.

One owes something to one's ancestors as well as to oneself. Well,
perhaps it was a hallucination. I would wait.

At the next drill Burker was present and rode as Number Three in Section
Six.

As there were twenty-three (living) on parade I ordered Number
Twenty-three to ride as Number Four of his section and leave a blank
file.

Burker rode in that blank file and drilled so, thro