ntrol, would be allowed to leave their new life of punishment--punishment
in the sense of _correction_, mind you--to come back here, wasting
their time, one may say, to frighten perfectly innocent people for no
purpose? No, I think I am quite consistent. Only try to get rid of all
_fears_--that is what we can all do. But really I should apologise for
all this lecture;" and he was turning to me with a smile, when his eyes
fell on the cup which he had replaced on the table.

"I cannot get over the impression that I have seen that cup--no, not
that cup, but one just like it, before. Not long ago, I fancy," he said.

"Oh, you must let us know if you find out anything," we all exclaimed.

"I certainly shall do so," he said, and a few minutes afterwards he and
Mr. Grenfell took their leave.

But I had time for a word or two with the latter out of hearing of the
others.

"Who is Sir Robert Masters?" I asked. "Have you known him long? He is a
very uncommon and impressive sort of man."

"Yes, I thought you would like him. I have not personally known him
long, but he is an old friend of friends of ours. He is of good family,
an old baronetcy, but he is not much known in fashionable society. He
travels a great deal, or has done so rather, and people say he has
'peculiar ideas,' though that would not go against him in the world.
Peculiar ideas, or the cant of them, are rather the fashion it seems to
me! But there is no cant about him. And whatever his ideas are," went on
young Grenfell warmly, "he is one of the _best_ men I ever knew. He has
settled down for some years, and devotes his whole life to doing good,
but so quietly and unostentatiously that no one knows how much he does,
and others get the credit of it very often."

That was all I heard.

I have never seen Sir Robert again. Still I have by no means arrived yet
at the end of my so-called ghost story.

The cup and saucer were carefully washed and replaced in the
glass-doored cabinet. The summer gradually waned, and we all returned to
our own home. It was at a considerable distance from my sister's, and
we met each other principally in the summer time. So, though I did not
forget Sir Robert Masters, or his somewhat strange conversation, amid
the crowd of daily interests and pleasures, duties and cares, none of
the incidents I have here recorded were much in my mind, and but that I
had while still in Germany carefully noted the details of all bearing
directly or in