And then there flashed across her a recollection of the fact that Bubbles had been there, sitting just below Lionel Varick.  Strange, half-forgotten stories of Indian magic—­of a man hung up in chains padlocked by British officers, and then, a moment later, that same man, freed, standing in their midst, the chains rattling together, empty—­floated through Blanche Farrow’s mind.  Was it possible that Bubbles possessed uncanny powers—­powers which had something to do with the immemorial magic of the immemorial East?

Blanche had once heard the phenomenon of the vanishing rope trick discussed at some length between a number of clever people.  She had paid very little attention to what had been said at the time, but she now strained her memory to recapture the sense of the words which had been uttered.  One of the men present, a distinguished scientist, had actually seen the trick done.  He had seen an Indian swarm up the rope and disappear—­into thin air!  What had he called it?  Collective hypnotism?  Yes, that was the expression he had used.  Some such power Bubbles certainly possessed, and perhaps to-day she had chosen to exercise it by recalling to the minds of those simple village folk the half-forgotten figure of the one-time mistress of Wyndfell Hall.  If she had really done this, Bubbles had played an ungrateful, cruel trick on Lionel Varick.

Blanche at last dropped off to sleep, but Pegler’s ridiculous yet sinister story had spoilt the pleasant memories of her day, and even her night, for she slept badly, and awoke unrefreshed.

CHAPTER X

There are few places in a civilized country more desolate than a big, empty country railway station:  such a station as that at Newmarket—­an amusing, bustling sight on a race day; strangely still and deserted, even on a fine summer day, when there’s nothing doing in the famous little town; and, in the depth of winter, extraordinarily forlorn.  The solitariness and the desolation were very marked on the early afternoon of New Year’s Eve which saw Varick striding up and down the deserted platform waiting for Dr. Panton, and Dr. Panton’s inseparable companion, a big, ugly, intelligent spaniel called Span.

Varick had more than one reason to be grateful to the young medical man with whom Fate had once thrown him into such close contact; and so this last spring, when Panton had had to be in London for a few days, Varick had taken a deal of trouble to ensure that the country doctor should have a good time.  But his own pleasure in his friend’s company had been somewhat spoilt by something Panton had then thought it right to tell him.  This something was that his late wife’s one-time companion, Miss Pigchalke, had gone to Redsands, and, seeking out the doctor, had tried to force him to say that poor Mrs. Varick had been ill-treated—­or if not exactly ill-treated, then neglected—­by her husband, during her last illness.