spirit Septimus May was safe.
Even had he been right and his prayer had freed such a being and cast
it out of my house, would the Almighty have permitted it to rend and
destroy the agent of its liberation? May could not have suffered death
by any conscious, supernatural means if our faith is true; but, as he
himself said, when he came here after the death of his boy, he did not
pretend that faith in God rendered a human being superior to the laws of
matter. If, as was suggested at dinner to-day, there is somebody in
this house with a mind unhinged who has discovered a secret of nature
by which human life can be destroyed and leave no sign, then this dead
clergyman was, of course, as powerless against such a hideous danger as
any other human being."

"But surely such a theory is quite as wild as any based on supernatural
assumptions? You know the occupants of this house--every one of them,
Sir Walter. Mary knows them, Henry knows them. I have attended most of
them at one time or another. Is there one against whom such a suspicion
can be entertained?"

"Not one indeed."

"Could the war have made a difference?" asked Mary. "We know how shell
shock and wounds to a poor man's head had often left him apparently
sound, yet in reality weakened as to his mind."

"Yes, that is true enough. And when the unfortunate men get back into
everyday life from the hospitals, or endeavor to resume their old work,
the weakness appears. I have seen cases. But of all the men in Chadlands
there are only three examples of any such catastrophe. I know a few in
the village--none where one can speak of actual insanity, however. Here
there is only Fred Caunter, who was hurt about the head on board ship,
but the injury left no defect."

"Fred is certainly as sane as I am--perhaps saner," admitted Sir Walter.

"Don't think I really imagine there is anything of the kind here," added
Mannering. "But if these four men are in a condition to proceed
with their work to-morrow, you must expect them to make a searching
examination of everybody in the house. And they may find a good number
of nervous and hysterical women, if not men. It is not their province,
however, to determine whether people are weak in the head, and I
know, as well as you do, that none in this house had any hand in these
disasters."

"Never was a family with fewer secrets than mine," declared Sir Walter.

"The morning may bring light," said Mary.

"I feel very little hope that