he occurrence I am going to relate to you happened, I had not
been thinking of Maud Bertram for months. I was in London just then,
staying with my brother, my eldest brother, who had been married for
several years, and lived in our own old town-house in ---- Square. It
was in April, a clear spring day, with no fog or half-lights about,
and it was not yet four o'clock in the afternoon--not very ghost-like
circumstances, you will admit. I had come home early from my club--it
was a sort of holiday-time with me just then for a few weeks--intending
to get some letters written which had been on my mind for some days,
and I had sauntered into the library, a pleasant, fair-sized room lined
with books, on the first-floor. Before setting to work I sat down for a
moment or two in an easy-chair by the fire, for it was still cool enough
weather to make a fire desirable, and began thinking over my letters.
No thought, no shadow of a thought of my old friend Miss Bertram was
present with me; of that I am perfectly certain. The door was on the
same side of the room as the fireplace; as I sat there, half facing the
fire, I also half faced the door. I had not shut it properly on coming
in--I had only closed it without turning the handle--and I did not feel
surprised when it slowly and noiselessly swung open, till it stood right
out into the room, concealing the actual doorway from my view. You will
perhaps understand the position better if you think of the door as just
then acting like a screen to the doorway. From where I sat I could not
have seen any one entering the room till he or she had got beyond the
door itself. I glanced up, half expecting to see some one come in, but
there was no one; the door had swung open of itself. For the moment I
sat on, with only the vague thought passing through my mind, 'I must
shut it before I begin to write.'

"But suddenly I found my eyes fixing themselves on the carpet; something
had come within their range of vision, compelling their attention in a
mechanical sort of way. What was it?

"'Smoke,' was my first idea. 'Can there be anything on fire?' But
I dismissed the notion almost as soon as it suggested itself. The
something, faint and shadowy, that came slowly rippling itself in as it
were beyond the dark wood of the open door, was yet too material for
'smoke.' My next idea was a curious one. 'It looks like soapy water,'
I said to myself; 'can one of the housemaids have been scrubbing, and
upset