ed up now, the front of the shirt was unbuttoned, and
on his arms and on the brown skin of his chest were strange
discolorations which grew momently more clear and defined, till they saw
that the marks were pointed prints, as if caused by the hoofs of some
monstrous goat that had leaped and stamped upon him.

THE WOMAN'S GHOST STORY[I]

BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD

"Yes," she said, from her seat in the dark corner, "I'll tell you an
experience if you care to listen. And, what's more, I'll tell it
briefly, without trimmings--I mean without unessentials. That's a thing
story-tellers never do, you know," she laughed. "They drag in all the
unessentials and leave their listeners to disentangle; but I'll give you
just the essentials, and you can make of it what you please. But on one
condition: that at the end you ask no questions, because I can't explain
it and have no wish to."

We agreed. We were all serious. After listening to a dozen prolix
stories from people who merely wished to "talk" but had nothing to tell,
we wanted "essentials."

"In those days," she began, feeling from the quality of our silence that
we were with her, "in those days I was interested in psychic things, and
had arranged to sit up alone in a haunted house in the middle of London.
It was a cheap and dingy lodging-house in a mean street, unfurnished.
I had already made a preliminary examination in daylight that afternoon,
and the keys from the caretaker, who lived next door, were in my pocket.
The story was a good one--satisfied me, at any rate, that it was worth
investigating; and I won't weary you with details as to the woman's
murder and all the tiresome elaboration as to _why_ the place was
_alive_. Enough that it was.

"I was a good deal bored, therefore, to see a man, whom I took to be the
talkative old caretaker, waiting for me on the steps when I went in at
11 P.M., for I had sufficiently explained that I wished to be there
alone for the night.

"'I wished to show you _the_ room,' he mumbled, and of course I couldn't
exactly refuse, having tipped him for the temporary loan of a chair and
table.

"'Come in, then, and let's be quick,' I said.

"We went in, he shuffling after me through the unlighted hall up to the
first floor where the murder had taken place, and I prepared myself to
hear his inevitable account before turning him out with the half-crown
his persistence had earned. After lighting the gas I sat down in the
arm-chair he