“The best men engaged in such work must come to help us.  I cannot bring myself to believe the room is haunted, and that this is the operation of an evil force outside Nature, yet permitted by the Creator to destroy human life.  The idea is too horrible—­it revolts me, Mannering.”

“Well, it may do so.  Banish any such irrational thought from your mind.  It is not worthy of you.  I must go now.  I will telegraph to London—­to Sir Howard Fellowes—­also, I think to the State authorities on forensic medicine.  A Government analyst must do his part.  Shall I communicate with Scotland Yard to-day?”

“Leave that until the evening.  You will come again to see Mary, please.”

“Mosr certainly I shall.  At three o’clock I should have a reply to my messages.  I will go into Newton Abbot and telephone from there.”

“I thank you, Mannering.  I wish it were possible to do more myself.  My mind is cruelly shaken.  This awful experience has made an old man of me.”

“Don’t say that.  It is awful enough, I admit.  But life is full of awful things.  Would that you might have escaped them!”

“Henry will help you, if it is in his power.  It would be well if we could give him something to do.  He feels guilty in a way.  I have little time to observe other people; but—­”

“He’s all right.  He can run into Newton with me now.  It looks to me as though his own life had hung on the pitch of a coin.  They tossed up!  After that—­so he tells me—­he tried to dissuade your son-in-law, but failed.  Lennox is rather cowed and dismayed—­ naturally.  The young, however, survive mental and physical disasters and recover in the most amazing manner.  Their mental recuperation is on a par with their bodily powers of recovery.  Nature is on their side.  Let me urge you to go down and take food.  If you can even lunch with your party I should.  It will distract your mind.”

Sir Walter declared that he had intended to do so.

“I am an old soldier,” he said.  “It shall not be thought I evade my obligations for personal sorrow.  As for this room, it is accursed and I am in a mind to destroy it utterly.”

“Wait—­wait.  We shall see what our fellow-men can find out for us.  Do not think, because I am practical and business-like, I am not feeling this.  Seldom have I had such a shock in nearly forty years’ work.  You know, without my telling you, how deep and heartfelt is my sympathy.  I feel for you both from my soul.”

“I am sure of that.  I will try and forget myself for the present.  I must go to my guests.  I am very sorry for them also.  It is a fearful experience to crash upon their party of pleasure.”

“I hope Travers may stay.  He is a comfort to you, is he not?”

“Nobody can be a comfort just now.  I shall not ask him to stay.  Fortunately Henry is here.  He will stop for the present.  Mary is all that matters.  I shall take her away as quickly as possible and devote my every thought to her.”