of the scene, or part of the scene, upon any mind psychically en rapport with that impress.  I confess this idea appeals to me.  It accounts for the undoubted fact that certain old rooms are undeniably creepy; also that apparitions, unconnected with actual flesh and blood, have been seen by sane and trustworthy witnesses.  It does away with the French word for ghost—­revenant.  There is no such thing as a ‘comer-back,’ or an ‘earth-bound spirit.’  Personally, I do not believe in immortality, in the usually accepted sense of the word; but I have always felt that were there such a thing as a disembodied spirit, it would have something better to do than to walk along old corridors, frightening housemaids!  But, to come to the point, concerning our own particular experience.

“I carefully told him every detail.  He believes that probably the old Florentine chair and the ’cello had been in conjunction before, and had both played their part in the scene which was re-acted in the mirror.  If so, poor old Ron was jolly well in for it, seated in the chair, and holding the ’cello.  His already over-excited brain found itself caught between them.  The fitful firelight and the large mirror supplied excellent mediums for the visualisation of the subjective picture.  Of course, we do not yet know what Ronnie saw.  I trust we never shall.  It is to be hoped he has forgotten it.  Had you and I seen nothing, we should unquestionably have dismissed the whole thing as merely a delirious nightmare of Ronnie’s unhinged brain.

“But the undoubted fact remains that we each saw, reflected in that mirror, objects which were not at that moment in the room.  In fact we saw the past reflected, rather than the present.  My psychic authority considers that both our impressions came to us through Ronnie’s mind, and were already fading, owing to the fact that he had become unconscious.  I, coming in later than you, merely saw the Florentine chair in position.  All else in my view of the reflection appertained to the actual present, into which the long-ago past was then rapidly merging.  But you, coming in a few moments sooner, and being far more en rapport with the spirit of the scene, saw the tall man in a red cloak—­whom you call the Avenger—­strangling the girl.  By the way, why do you call him the Avenger?”

“Because,” said Helen, slowly, “there was murder in the cruel face of the woman, and there was a dagger in her hand.  She had struck her blow before he appeared upon the scene.  I know this, because it was the flare of his crimson cloak, as he rushed in, which first caught my eye, in the firelight, and made me look into the mirror at all.  Before that I was intent on Ronnie.  The Avenger seized the woman from behind; I saw his brown hands on the whiteness of her throat.  Grief and horror were on his face, as he looked over her shoulder, and past the chair, at the prostrate heap upon the floor.”

“Which heap,” said Dick, trying to speak lightly, “was our poor Ronnie.”