nt from
the countenances of the dead. The jaws were not set; the familiar,
expressions were not changed, as usually happens from rigidity of facial
muscles; their faces were not sallow; their temples were not sunk; their
brows were not contracted.

"We will now take the victims, one by one, and show how death happened
to each of them, yet left no sign that it had happened. Frankly,
the first case alone presented any difficulties to me. For a time I
despaired of proving how the bed had destroyed Sir Walter's ancestor,
because she had not entered it. But the difficulty becomes clear to one
possessing our present knowledge, for once prove the properties of the
bed, and the rest follows. You will say that they were not proved, only
guessed. That was true, until Prince died. His death crowned my
edifice of theory and converted it to fact. As to why the bed has these
properties, that is for science to find out presently.

"To return, then, to the old lady, the ancient woman of your race, who
came unexpectedly to the Christmas re-union and was put to sleep in the
Grey Room at her own wish. She was found dead next morning on the floor.
She had not entered the bed. The exact facts have long disappeared
from human knowledge, and it is only possible to re-construct them by
inference and the support of those straightforward events that followed.
I conceive, then, that though the old lady did not create the warmth
that liberated the evil spirit of the bed and so destroyed her, that
warmth was nevertheless artificially created. What must have happened,
think you? The bed is made up in haste and the fire lighted. But the
fire is a long way from the bed, and would have no effect to create the
necessary temperature. There is, however, a hot-water bottle in the bed,
or a hot brick wrapped in flannel. The old lady is about to enter her
bed. She has extinguished her candle, but the flame of the fire gives
light. She has prayed; she throws off her dressing-gown and flings back
the covering of the bed, to fall an instant victim to the miasma. She
drops backward and is found dead next morning, by which time the bottle
and bed are also cold.

"Taken alone, I grant this explanation may fail to win your sympathy;
but consider the cumulative evidence in store. The old lady may, of
course, have died a natural death. She may not have turned down the bed.
There is nobody living to tell us. All that Sir Walter can recollect is
that she was found o