. It was known that
Colston did not drink liquor, but many said that he ate opium. Something
in his appearance that morning--a certain wildness of the eyes, an
unusual pallor, a thickness and rapidity of speech--were taken by Mr.
Marsh to confirm the report. Nevertheless, he had not the self-denial to
abandon a subject which he found interesting, however it might excite
his friend.

"Do you mean to say," he began, "that if I take the trouble to observe
your directions--place myself in the conditions that you demand:
solitude, night and a tallow candle--you can with your ghostly work give
me an uncomfortable sense of the supernatural, as you call it? Can you
accelerate my pulse, make me start at sudden noises, send a nervous
chill along my spine and cause my hair to rise?"

Colston turned suddenly and looked him squarely in the eyes as they
walked. "You would not dare--you have not the courage," he said. He
emphasized the words with a contemptuous gesture. "You are brave enough
to read me in a street car, but--in a deserted house--alone--in the
forest--at night! Bah! I have a manuscript in my pocket that would kill
you."

Marsh was angry. He knew himself courageous, and the words stung him.
"If you know such a place," he said, "take me there to-night and leave
me your story and a candle. Call for me when I've had time enough to
read it and I'll tell you the entire plot and--kick you out of the
place."

That is how it occurred that the farmer's boy, looking in at an unglazed
window of the Breede house, saw a man sitting in the light of a candle.

THE DAY AFTER

Late in the afternoon of the next day three men and a boy approached the
Breede house from that point of the compass toward which the boy had
fled the preceding night. The men were in high spirits; they talked very
loudly and laughed. They made facetious and good-humored ironical
remarks to the boy about his adventure, which evidently they did not
believe in. The boy accepted their raillery with seriousness, making no
reply. He had a sense of the fitness of things and knew that one who
professes to have seen a dead man rise from his seat and blow out a
candle is not a credible witness.

Arriving at the house and finding the door unlocked, the party of
investigators entered without ceremony. Leading out of the passage into
which this door opened was another on the right and one on the left.
They entered the room on the left--the one which had the blank fron