ght that has often been made. It may be that
physical birth is but a secondary process; and that prior to the
possibility, the Mother Spirit searches for, until it finds, the small
Element--the primal Ego or child's soul. It may be that a certain
waywardness would cause such to strive to evade capture by the Mother
Spirit. It may have been such a thing as this, that I saw. I have always
tried to think so; but it is impossible to ignore the sense of repulsion
that I felt when the unseen Woman went past me. This repulsion carries
forward the idea suggested in the Sigsand MS., that a stillborn child is
thus, because its ego or spirit has been snatched back by the 'Hags.' In
other words, by certain of the Monstrosities of the Outer Circle. The
thought is inconceivably terrible, and probably the more so because it is
so fragmentary. It leaves us with the conception of a child's soul adrift
half-way between two lives, and running through Eternity from Something
incredible and inconceivable (because not understood) to our senses.

"The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to
discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so
fragmentary as this. There is one thought, which is often mine. Perhaps
there is a Mother Spirit--"

"And the well?" said Arkwright. "How did the captain get in from the
other side?"

"As I said before," answered Carnacki. "The side walls of the well did
not reach to the bottom; so that you had only to dip down into the water,
and come up again on the other side of the wall, under the cellar floor,
and so climb into the passage. Of course, the water was the same height
on both sides of the walls. Don't ask me who made the well entrance or
the little stairway; for I don't know. The house was very old, as I have
told you; and that sort of thing was useful in the old days."

"And the Child," I said, coming back to the thing which chiefly
interested me. "You would say that the birth must have occurred in that
house; and in this way, one might suppose that the house to have become
_en rapport_, if I can use the word in that way, with the Forces that
produced the tragedy?"

"Yes," replied Carnacki. "This is, supposing we take the suggestion of
the Sigsand MS., to account for the phenomenon."

"There may be other houses--" I began.

"There are," said Carnacki; and stood up.

"Out you go," he said, genially, using the recognized formula. And in
five minutes we were