eally lives for
now, Miss Farrow."

"I'm afraid it is"--Blanche felt really concerned. What had just taken
place was utterly unlike anything she had ever imagined. And yet--and
yet it didn't amount to very much, after all! The most extraordinary
thing which had happened, to her mind, was what had been told to old
Miss Burnaby.

And then all at once she remembered--and smiled an inward, derisive
little smile. Why, of course! She had overheard Miss Burnaby tell her
neighbour at dinner that as a girl she had stayed a winter in Austria.
How quick, how clever Bubbles had been--how daring, too! Still, deep in
her heart, she was glad that her niece had not had time to come round to
where she, herself, had been sitting. Bubbles knew a good deal about her
Aunt Blanche, and it certainly would not have been very pleasant had the
child made use of her knowledge--even to a slight degree.... Miss Farrow
went up to the table on which now stood a large lacquer tray, and poured
herself out a glass of cold water. She was an abstemious woman.

"I think some of us ought to go up to bed now" she said, turning round.
"It isn't late yet, but I'm sure we're all tired. And we've had rather
an exciting evening."

There was a good deal of hand-shaking, and a little talk of plans for
the morrow. Bubbles had come over, and joined the others, but she was
still curiously abstracted.

"Where's Mr. Burnaby?" she asked suddenly. "Wasn't he at the seance?"

"He's gone to bed," said his sister shortly.

Her host was handing the old lady a bedroom candle, and she was looking
up at him with a kind of appeal in her now troubled and bewildered face.

"I feel I owe you an apology," he said in a low voice. "Bubbles Dunster
has always possessed extraordinary powers of thought-reading. I remember
hearing that years ago, when she was a child. But of course I had no
idea she had developed the gift to the extent she now has--or I should
have forbidden her to exercise it to-night."

After the three other women had all gone upstairs, Blanche Farrow
lingered a moment at the bottom of the staircase; and Varick, having
shepherded Sir Lyon, young Donnington, and James Tapster into the hall,
joined her for a few moments.

"Bubbles is an extraordinary young creature," he said thoughtfully. "I
shouldn't have thought it within the power of any human being to impress
me as she impressed me to-night. What a singular gift the girl has!"

Somehow Blanche felt irritat