“About ten o’clock the butler brought us up a tray, for which I was very glad, as the night before I had got rather hungry.  I warned Beaumont, however, to be very particular not to drink any spirits and I also made him give me his pipe and matches.  At midnight I drew a pentacle ’round him and Parsket and I sat one on each side of him, outside the pentacle, for I had no fear that there would be any manifestation made against anyone except Beaumont or Miss Hisgins.

“After that we kept pretty quiet.  The passage was lit by a big lamp at each end so that we had plenty of light and we were all armed, Beaumont and I with revolvers and Parsket with a shotgun.  In addition to my weapon I had my camera and flashlight.

“Now and again we talked in whispers and twice the Captain came out of the bedroom to have a word with us.  About half-past one we had all grown very silent and suddenly, about twenty minutes later, I held up my hand, silently, for there seemed to be a sound of galloping out in the night.  I knocked on the bedroom door for the Captain to open it and when he came I whispered to him that we thought we heard the Horse.  For some time we stayed listening, and both Parsket and the Captain thought they heard it; but now I was not so sure, neither was Beaumont.  Yet afterward, I thought I heard it again.

“I told Captain Hisgins I thought he had better go into the bedroom and leave the door a little open and this he did.  But from that time onward we heard nothing and presently the dawn came in and we all went very thankfully to bed.

“When I was called at lunchtime I had a little surprise, for Captain Hisgins told me that they had held a family council and had decided to take my advice and have the marriage without a day’s more delay than possible.  Beaumont was already on his way to London to get a special License and they hoped to have the wedding next day.

“This pleased me, for it seemed the sanest thing to be done in the extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.

“After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of Miss Hisgins and her surroundings.  Sometimes the camera sees things that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.

“With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my experiments.  She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which we chanced to be at the moment.

“After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the cellars.  She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket, for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial darkness without help and companionship at hand.