The next year on the 21st September Mr. Hunter kept up the whole night, but he had no visit from the ghostly lady.

The house is now in the occupation of another European gentleman who took it after Mr. Hunter’s transfer from the station and this new tenant had no visit from the ghost either.  Let us hope that “she” now rests in peace.

* * * * *

The following extract from a Bengal newspaper that appeared in September 1913, is very interesting and instructive.

“The following extraordinary phenomenon took place at the Hooghly Police Club Building, Chinsurah, at about midnight on last Saturday.

“At this late hour of the night some peculiar sounds of agony on the roof of the house aroused the resident members of the Club, who at once proceeded to the roof with lamps and found to their entire surprise a lady clad in white jumping from the roof to the ground (about a hundred feet in height) followed by a man with a dagger in his hands.  But eventually no trace of it could be found on the ground.  This is not the first occasion that such beings are found to visit this house and it is heard from a reliable source that long ago a woman committed suicide by hanging and it is believed that her spirit loiters round the building.  As these incidents have made a deep impression upon the members, they have decided to remove the Club from the said buildings.”

THE OPEN DOOR.

Here again is something that is very peculiar and not very uncommon.

* * * * *

We, myself and three other friends of mine, were asked by another friend of ours to pass a week’s holiday at the suburban residence of the last named.  We took an evening train after the office hours and reached our destination at about 10-30 at night.  The place was about 60 miles from Calcutta.

Our host had a very large house with a number of disused wings.  I do not think many of my readers have any idea of a large residential house in Bengal.  Generally it is a quadrangular sort of thing with a big yard in the centre which is called the “Angan” or “uthan” (a court-yard).  On all sides of the court-yard are rooms of all sorts of shapes and sizes.  There are generally two stories—­the lower used as kitchen, godown, store-room, etc., and the upper as bed-rooms, etc.

[Illustration:  ABCDE is the shady foot-path from the lake to the front of the house. * is the open door.]

Now this particular house of our friend was of the kind described above.  It stood on extensive grounds wooded with fruit and timber trees.  There was also a big tank, a miniature lake in fact, which was the property of my friend.  There was good fishing in the lake and that was the particular attraction that had drawn my other friends to this place.  I myself was not very fond of angling.