ed
through the door that led into the dressing-room.

I waited a few minutes to see if she would return, or perhaps some one
else enter by the other door, but no sound greeted my ear, and my eyes
could discover nothing unusual about the room.

I rose, and, moving on tiptoe, opened both doors, and with the light of
an electric torch I always carried with me, investigated the corridor
and dressing-room, but could make no discovery of any kind, nor perceive
where my fair visitant had vanished.

When I returned to my room I found Brenda had been disturbed by my
perambulation, for she was up and moving about restlessly. Giving her a
pat I bade her lie down again, and went back to bed determined to stay
awake for the chance of my Lady reappearing.

A few minutes after this Brenda seemed to be taken with a fit, for she
got up suddenly, made a bolt, as it were, for the door, shook with some
convulsive movements of her jaw, gave a horrible sort of strangled sob,
and fell with a heavy thud on the floor.

I leapt out of bed, got some water in a basin and knelt down beside her,
but she was already stiff, her teeth were clenched, and she showed a
horribly distorted mask.

A horrid suspicion awoke in my mind. I searched with my torch on the
floor where my Lady had dropped the powder, and I could plainly see the
wet edge of Brenda's tongue and the smudge of the white powder which she
had licked up.

I went back to where Brenda lay stiff and stark, and felt with a
trembling hand for her heart.

It beat no more; my Brenda was dead--poisoned by the beautiful Lady.

THE WARLOCK OF GLORORUM

'But are you sure your father wouldn't object?' I asked of my
companion--a most bright and amusing Eton boy--to whom I was playing
bear leader. 'Not a bit,' replied he; 'my father is a naturalist and
Darwinian; not a sceptic, but _Agnosticus suavis_ or _Verecundus, ordo
compositae_, you know. "Hunt the ghost by all means," said he, when I
suggested a ghost "worry," and then as he does sometimes over coffee and
a cigarette after dinner he talked with a real keen interest on the
whole subject. He talked so long that old Mac (the butler) got quite
shirty, and finally--after putting his head round the door two or three
times--came in like the Lord Mayor and bore off the whisky decanter to
the smoking-room. Now, the pater said that the love of the marvellous
was native to mankind, and Tertullian had acquired a false credit for
his motto