Her voice died away, then suddenly became stronger, more confident:  “Your mother—­if it is your mother—­is trying to shield you from her.”

She remained silent for a while.  She seemed to be listening.  Then she spoke again:  “I get a word—­what is it?—­not Ardour?  Aboard? No, I think it’s Arbour!”

She gazed anxiously into Varick’s pale, set face.  “She says, ’Remember the Arbour.’  D’you follow me?”

She asked the question with a certain urgency, and Bubbles’ host nodded, imperceptibly.

Then she left him, dragging her chair along till she was just opposite Helen Brabazon.

“I see a man standing behind you,” she began; “he is dressed in rather curious, old-fashioned cricketing clothes.”

A look of amazement and understanding passed over Helen’s face.

Bubbles went on, confidently:  “He is a tall, well-set-up man.  He has light brown hair and grey eyes.  He is smiling.  I think it is your father.  Now he looks grave.  He is uneasy about you.  He is sorry you came here, to Wyndfell Hall.  Do you follow me?”

But Helen shook her head.  She felt bewildered and oppressed.  “I wonder,” she said falteringly, “if he could give me a sign?  I do so long to know if it is really my dear, dear father.”

Blanche Farrow turned a little hot.  It was too bad of Bubbles to do the thing in this way!

“He says—­he says—­I hear him say a word—­” Bubbles stopped and knit her brows. “’Girl, girl’—­no, it isn’t ’girl’—­”

“Girlie?” murmured Helen under her breath.

“Yes, that’s it!  ‘Girlie’—­he says ’girlie.’”

Helen Brabazon covered her face with her hands.  She was deeply moved.  What wonderful thing was this?  She told herself that never, never would she allow herself to speak lightly or slightingly of spiritualism again!  As far as she knew, no one in that room, not even her uncle or aunt, was aware that “girlie” had been her long dead father’s pet name for his only child.

And then, quite suddenly, Bubbles’ voice broke into a kind of cry.  “Take care!” she said.  “Take care!  I see another form.  It has taken the place of your father.  I think it is the form of a woman who has passed over, and who loved you once, but whose heart is now full of hatred.  D’you follow me?  Quick! quick!  She’s fading away!”

Helen shook her head.  “No,” she said in a dull voice, “I don’t follow you at all.”

She felt acutely, unreasonably disappointed.  There was no one in the world who had first loved and then hated her, or who could hate her.  She cast her mind back to some of her schoolfellows; but no, as far as she knew they were all still alive, and there was not one of them to whom these exaggerated terms of love and hatred could be applied.

Bubbles dragged her chair on till she was just opposite Sir Lyon Dilsford.

He put up his hand:  “Will you kindly pass me by, Laughing Water?” he said, in his full, pleasant voice.  “I’m an adept, and I don’t care for open Circles.  If you don’t mind, will you pass on?”