've read a lot about the
spirits, being terrible interested in 'em, as all human men must be; and
I hear that running after 'em often brings trouble. I don't mean to your
life, Sir Walter, but to your wits. People get cracked on 'em and
have to be locked up. I stopped everybody frightening themselves into
'sterics at dinner to-day; but you could see how it took 'em; and,
whether or no, I do beg Mr. May to be so kind as to let me sit up along
with him to-night.

"You never hear of two people getting into trouble with these here
customers, and while he was going for this blackguard ghost in the name
of the Lord, I could keep my weather eye lifting for trouble. 'Tis a
matter for common sense and keeping your nerve, in my opinion, and we
don't want another death on our hands, I suppose. There'll be half
the mountebanks and photograph men and newspaper men in the land here
to-morrow, and 'twill take me all my time to keep 'em from over-running
the house. Because if they could come in their scores for the late
captain--poor gentleman!--what won't they try now this here famous
detective has been done in?"

"Henry deplored the same thing," said Mary. "And I answer again, as I
answered then," replied Septimus May. "You mean well, Sir Walter, and
your butler means well; but you propose an act in direct opposition to
the principle that inspires me."

"What do you expect to happen?" asked Mary. "Do you suppose you will
see something, and that something will tell you what it is, and why it
killed dear Tom?"

"That, at any rate, would be a very great blessing to the living," said
her father.

"The least the creature could do, in my humble opinion," ventured
Masters.

But Septimus May deprecated such curiosity.

"Hope for no such thing, and do not dwell upon what is to happen until
I am able to tell you what does happen," he answered. "Allow no human
weakness, no desire to learn the secrets of another world, to distract
your thoughts. I am only concerned with what I know beyond possibility
of doubt is my duty--to be entered upon as swiftly as possible. I hear
my call in the very voice of the wind shouting round the house to-night.
But beyond my duty I do not seek. Whether information awaits me, whether
some manifestation indicating my success and valuable to humanity will
be granted, I cannot say. I do not stop now to think about that.

"Alone I do this thing--yet not alone, for my hand is in my Maker's
hand. Your part will