“To simplify their operations, no doubt, and make it easier for the spirits.”

“And themselves!  But why is the night sacred to apparitions and supernatural phenomena generally?”

“Tradition associates them with those hours.  Spiritualists say it is easier for spectres to appear in the dark by reason of their material composition.  It is then that we find the most authentic accounts of their manifestations.”

“Yes; because at that time human vitality is lowest and human reason weakest.  Darkness itself has a curious and depressing effect on the minds of many people.  I have won my advantage from that more than once.  I once proved a very notorious crime by the crude expedient of impersonating the criminal’s victim—­a murdered woman—­and appearing to him at night before a concealed witness.  But spirits are doomed.  The present extraordinary wave of superstition and the immense prosperity of the dealers in the ‘occult’ is a direct result of the war.  They are profiteers—­ every one of them—­crystal gazers, mediums, fortune tellers, and the rest.  They are reaping a rare harvest for the moment.  We punish the humbler rogues, but we don’t punish the fools who go to see them.  If I had my way, the man or woman who visited the modern witch or wizard should get six months in the second division.  Fools should be punished oftener for their folly.  But education will sweep these things into the limbo of man’s ignorance and mental infancy.  Ghosts cannot stand the light of knowledge any better than they can operate in the light of day.”

“You are very positive, Mr. Hardcastle.”

“Not often—­on this subject—­yes, Sir Walter Lennox.  I have seen too much of the practitioners.  Metaphysics is largely to blame.  Physics, the strong, you will find far too merciful to metaphysics, the weak.”

Sir Walter found himself regarding Hardcastle with dislike.  He spoke quietly, yet there was something mocking and annoying in his dogmatism.

“You must discuss the subject with Mr. May, who breakfasted with us.  He will, I think, have no difficulty in maintaining the contrary opinion.”

“They never have any difficulty—­clergymen I mean—­and argument with them is vain, because we cannot find common ground to start from.  What is the reverend gentleman’s theory?”

“He believes that the room holds an invisible and conscious presence permitted to exercise powers of a physical character antagonistic to human life.  He is guarded, you see, and will not go so far as to say whether this being is working for good or evil.”

“But it has done evil, surely?”

“Evil from our standpoint.  But since the Supreme Creator made this creature as well as He made us, therefore Mr. May holds that we are not justified in declaring its operations are evil—­save from a human standpoint.”

“How was he related to Captain Thomas May?”

“His father.”