isn't beautiful; but
it's there. You might even come to be glad it is there, when the stars
of gold and silver have faded. I am an old man now, but some men are
still glad to find my red star. I do not say they are the wise men.

PATRICIA. [_Somewhat affected._] Yes, I know you are good to everybody.
But don't you think there may be floating and spiritual stars which will
last longer than the red lamps?

SMITH. [_With decision._] Yes. But they are fixed stars.

DOCTOR. The red lamp will last my time.

DUKE. Capital! Capital! Why, it's like Tennyson. [_Silence._] I remember
when I was an undergrad....

[_The red light disappears; no one sees it at first except_
PATRICIA, _who points excitedly._

MORRIS. What's the matter?

PATRICIA. The red star is gone.

MORRIS. Nonsense! [_Rushes to the garden doors._] It's only somebody
standing in front of it. Say, Duke, there's somebody standing in the
garden.

PATRICIA. [_Calmly._] I told you he walked about the garden.

MORRIS. If it's that fortune-teller of yours....

[_Disappears into the garden, followed by the_ DOCTOR.

DUKE. [_Staring._] Somebody in the garden! Really, this Land
Campaign....

[_Silence._

[MORRIS _reappears rather breathless._

MORRIS. A spry fellow, your friend. He slipped through my hands like a
shadow.

PATRICIA. I told you he was a shadow.

MORRIS. Well, I guess there's going to be a shadow hunt. Got a lantern,
Duke?

PATRICIA. Oh, you need not trouble. He will come if I call him.

[_She goes out into the garden and calls out some half-chanted and
unintelligible words, somewhat like the song preceding her
entrance. The red light reappears; and there is a slight sound as
of fallen leaves shuffled by approaching feet. The cloaked_
STRANGER _with the pointed hood is seen standing outside the garden
doors._

PATRICIA. You may enter all doors.

[_The figure comes into the room_

MORRIS. [_Shutting the garden doors behind him._] Now, see here, wizard,
we've got you. And we know you're a fraud.

SMITH. [_Quietly._] Pardon me, I do not fancy that we know that. For
myself I must confess to something of the Doctor's agnosticism.

MORRIS. [_Excited, and turning almost with a snarl._] I didn't know you
parsons stuck up for any fables but your own.

SMITH. I stick up for the thing every man has a right to. Perhaps the
only thing that every man has a right to.

MORRIS. And