I don’t know what made me reply, “Allan Mackenzie.”  It was true, but it was not politic.

“By Jove!” said the spectre, eagerly.  “Here’s a chance!  I don’t suppose a Mackenzie has slept here for those hundred years.  And now, how is it to be done?  Setting fire to the castle is simple”—­here I remembered how he had lighted my cigarette—­“but who on earth is to elope with Lady Perilous?  She’s fifty if she’s a day, and evangelical a tout casser!  Oh no; the thing is out of the question.  It really must be put off for another generation or two.  There is no hurry.”

I felt a good deal relieved.  He was clearly a being of extraordinary powers, and might, for anything I knew, have made me run away with Lady Perilous.  And then, when the pangs of remorse began to tell on her ladyship, never a very lively woman at the best of times—­However, the spectre seemed to have thought better of it.

“Don’t you think it is rather hard on a family,” I asked, “to have a family genius, and prophecies, and a curse, and—­”

“And everything handsome about them,” he interrupted me by exclaiming; “and you call yourself a Mackenzie of Megasky!  What has become of family pride?  Why, you yourselves have Gruagach of the Red Hand in the hall, and he, I can tell you, is a very different sort of spectre from me.  Pre-Christian, you know—­one of the oldest ghosts in Ross-shire.  But as to ‘hard on a family,’ why, noblesse oblige.”

“Considering that you are the family genius, you don’t seem to have brought them much luck,” I put in, for the house of Perilous is neither rich in gold nor very distinguished in history.

“Yes, but just think what they would have been without a family genius, if they are what they are with one!  Besides, the prophecies are really responsible,” he added, with the air of one who says, “I have a partner—­Mr. Jorkins.”

“Do you mind telling me one thing?” I asked eagerly.  “What is the mystery of the Secret Chamber—­I mean the room whither the heir is taken when he comes of age, and he never smiles again, nor touches a card except at baccarat?”

“Never smiles again!” said the spectre.  “Doesn’t he?  Are you quite certain that he ever smiled before?”

This was a new way of looking at the question, and rather disconcerted me.

“I did not know the Master of Perilous before he came of age,” said I; “but I have been here for a week, and watched him and Lord Perilous, and I never observed a smile wander over their lips.  And yet little Tompkins” (he was the chief social buffoon of the hour) “has been in great force, and I may say that I myself have occasionally provoked a grin from the good-natured.”