Sir Walter, disappointed of his hopes respecting his nephew and daughter, had none the less treated the young man with tact and tenderness.  He felt for Henry; he was also fond of him and doubted not that the youth would prove a worthy successor.  Thomas May was one with whom none could quarrel, and he and his wife’s old flame were now, after the acquaintance of a week, on friendly terms.

“I shan’t fail, uncle.”

“Will anybody have another whisky?” asked Sir Walter, rising.

It was the signal for departure and invariably followed the stroke of a deep-mouthed, grandfather clock in the hail.  When eleven sounded, the master rose; but to-night he was delayed.  Tom May spoke.

“Fayre-Michell has never heard the ghost story, governor,” he said, “and Mr. Travers badly wants another drink.  If he doesn’t have one, he won’t sleep all night.  He’s done ten men’s work to-day.”

Mr. Fayre-Michell spoke.

“I didn’t know you had a ghost, Sir Walter.  I’m tremendously interested in psychical research and so on.  If it’s not bothering you and keeping you up—.”

“A ghost at Chadlands, Walter?” asked Ernest Travers.  “You never told me.”

“Ghosts are all humbug,” declared another speaker—­a youthful “colonel” of the war.

“I deprecate that attitude, Vane.  It may certainly be that our ghost is a humbug, or, rather, that we have no such thing as a ghost at all.  And that is my own impression.  But an idle generality is always futile—­indeed, any generality usually is.  You have, at least, no right to say, ‘Ghosts are all humbug.’  Because you cannot prove they are.  The weight of evidence is very much on the other side.”

“Sorry,” said Colonel Vane, a man without pride.  “I didn’t know you believed in ’em, Sir Walter.”

“Most emphatically I believe in them.”

“So do I,” declared Ernest Travers.  “Nay, so does my wife—­for the best possible reason.  A friend of hers actually saw one.”

Mr. Fayre-Michell spoke.

“Spiritualism and spirits are two quite different things,” he said.  “One may discredit the whole business of spiritualism and yet firmly believe in spirits.”

He was a narrow-headed, clean-shaven man with grey hair and moustache.  He had a small body on very long legs, and though a veteran now, was still one of the best game shots in the West of England.

Ernest Travers agreed with him.  Indeed, they all agreed.  Sir Walter himself summed up.

“If you’re a Christian, you must believe in the spirits of the dead,” he declared; “but to go out of your way to summon these spirits, to call them from the next world back to ours, and to consult people who profess to be able to do so—­extremely doubtful characters, as a rule—­that I think is much to be condemned.  I deny that there are any living mediums of communication between the spirit world and this one, and I should always judge the man or woman who claimed such power to be a charlatan.  But that spirits of the departed have appeared and been recognized by the living, who shall deny?