were displayed to the minutest part in the blinding ray of the lamp, and the next second they were in obscurity again. It was uncanny. I was impressed; and all the superstition which, like a snake, lies hidden in the heart of every man, stirred vaguely and raised its head.

“Carl — ” Emmeline began, and paused.

The woman indubitably did affect me strangely. Hers was a lonely soul, an unusual mixture of the absolutely conventional and of something quite else — something bizarre, disturbing, and inexplicable. I was conscious of a feeling of sympathy for her.

“Well?” I murmured.

“Do you believe in the supernatural?”

“I neither believe nor disbelieve,”