There came a cloud over his honest face as he thought of what had happened this very evening.  And yet, and yet he had to admit that even now he could never make up his mind—­he never knew, that is, how far what took place was due to a supernatural agency, or how much to Bubbles’ uncanny quickness and cleverness.

What was more strange, considering how well he knew her, Donnington did not really know how much she herself believed in it all.  As a rule—­probably because she knew how anxious and troubled he felt about the matter—­Bubbles would very seldom discuss with him any of the strange happenings in which she was so absorbed.  And yet, now and again, almost as if in spite of herself, she would ask him if he would care to come to a seance, or invite him to witness an exceptionally remarkable manifestation at some psychic friend’s house.

It had early become impossible for him, apart from everything else, to accept the easy “all rot” theory, for Bubbles’ occult gifts were really very remarkable and striking.  They had become known to the now large circle of intelligent people who make a study of psychic phenomena, and among them, just because she was an “amateur,” she was much in request.

But it had never occurred to him, from what he had been told of the party now gathered together, that there would be the slightest attempt at the sort of thing which had happened to-night.  He felt sharply irritated with Miss Farrow, whom he had never liked, and also with Lionel Varick.  He knew that Bubbles’ father had written to her aunt; he had himself advised it, knowing, with that shrewd, rather pathetic instinct which love gives to some natures, that Bubbles thought a great deal of her aunt—­far more, indeed, than her aunt did of her.  He told himself that he would speak to Miss Farrow to-morrow—­have it out with her.

Rather slowly and deliberately, for he was a rather slow and deliberate young man, he put out the lights of the three seven-branched candlesticks which illumined the beautiful old room; and, as he moved about, he suddenly became aware that nearly opposite the door giving into the staircase lobby was a finely-carved, oak, confessional-box.  What an odd, incongruous ornament to have in a living-room!

The last bedroom candlestick had gone, and temporarily blinded by the sudden darkness, he groped his way up the broad, shallow stairs to the corridor which he knew ultimately led to his room.

He was setting his feet cautiously one before the other on the landing, his eyes by now accustomed to the grey dimness of a winter night, for the great window above the staircase was uncurtained, when Something suddenly loomed up before him, and he felt his right arm gripped.

He gave a stifled cry.  And then, all at once, he knew that it was Bubbles—­only Bubbles!  He felt her dear nearness rushing, as it were, all over him.  It was all he could do to prevent himself from taking her in his arms.