It was this constant perception of a state of nervous suffering and irritability in this splendid physical creature—­a state explained, as he thought, by her story, which had put him instantly on his guard, when that sinister vision at the window had sprung for a moment out of the darkness.  Before almost he could move towards it, it had gone.  And with a farewell smile at the woman he had just been holding in his arms, a smile which betrayed nothing, he had hurried away from her to investigate the mystery.  A hasty word to Janet Leighton in the kitchen, and he was making a rapid circuit of the farm, and searching the farm-yard; with no results whatever.

Then he, Janet, and Hastings had held a hurried and secret colloquy in a corner of the great cow-shed, as far from Rachel’s sight and hearing as possible.  Clearly some one was haunting the farm for some malicious purpose.  Hastings, for the first time, told the story of the blood-marks, and of two or three other supposed visions of a man, tall and stooping, with a dark sallow face, which persons working on the farm, or walking near it on the hill, had either seen or imagined.  Ellesborough finally had jumped on his motor-bicycle and ridden off to the police depot at Millsborough.  Some wind of the happenings at Great End Farm had already reached the police, but they could throw no light on them.  They arranged, however, with Ellesborough to patrol the farm and the neighbourhood after dark as often as their diminished force would allow.

They were inclined to believe that some half-witted person was concerned, drawn, perhaps, from the alien population which had been floating through the district, and bent on mischief or robbery—­or a mixture of both.

Rachel meanwhile knew nothing of these consultations.  After her engagement was made public, she began to look so white, so tired and tremulous, that both Ellesborough and Janet were alarmed.  Overwork, according to Janet, with the threshing, and in the potato-fields.  Never had Rachel worked with such a feverish energy as in these autumn weeks.  Add the excitement of an engagement, said Janet, and you see the result.

She would have prescribed bed and rest; but Rachel scouted the advice.  The alternative was amusement—­change of scene—­in Ellesborough’s company.  Here she was more docile, feverishly submissive and happy, indeed, so long as Ellesborough made the plans, and Ellesborough watched over her.  Janet wondered at certain profound changes in her.  It was, she saw, the first real passion of Rachel’s life.

* * * * *

So Dempsey called in vain.  Miss Henderson was in town for a theatre and shopping.  But he saw Janet Leighton, to whom with all the dramatic additions and flourishes he had now bestowed upon it, he told his story.  Janet, who, on a hint from Hastings, had expected the visitation, was at any rate glad that Rachel was out of the way, seeing what a strong and curious dislike she had to the ghost-story, and also to any talk of the murder from which it originated.