mischance, was put in the way of the nameless knowledge which explains all. At any rate, I was made acquainted with some trifle of it. I had strayed on the seashore of the unknown, and picked up a pebble. I had a glimpse of that other world which permeates and exists side by side with and permeates our own.

Just now I used the phrase “under the heel of a ghost,” and I used it advisedly. It indicates pretty well my mental condition. I was cowed, mastered. The ghost of Clarenceux, driven to extremities by the brief scene of tenderness which had passed in Rosa’s drawing-room, had determined by his own fell method to end the relations between Rosa and myself. And his method was to assume a complete sway over me, the object of his hatred.

How did he exercise that sway? Can I