“Yes, you brought it over here.”

“Yes, I—­I brought it over.  I brought it—­but—­”

“But what?”

“But I didn’t know that I did.  I must have been thinking of something else when I went after my things and it is a mercy that I took my own coat.  It was only by accident that I took the—­ah—­ young man’s cap.  I was under the impression that it was my own.  I presume my own cap is hanging in the Hallett entry at this moment. . . .  Ah—­good-night, Miss Phipps.  Good night.  I have had a very pleasant evening, very pleasant indeed.”

CHAPTER VIII

Martha Phipps and her lodger, to say nothing of Lulie Hallett, were fearful of the effect which the eventful seance might have upon the light keeper.  It was with considerable foreboding that Martha called Lulie up on the telephone the next morning.  But the news she received in answer to her call was reassuring.  Captain Jethro, so Lulie said, was apparently quite himself again, a little tired and a trifle irritable, but otherwise all right.

“The only unusual thing about him,” said his daughter, “is that he has not once mentioned the seance or anything that happened there.  If it wasn’t too ridiculous to be possible I should almost think he had forgotten it.”

“Then for the land sakes don’t remind him,” urged Martha, eagerly.  “So long as he is willin’ not to remember you ought to be.  Yes, and thankful,” she added.

“I guess likely he hasn’t forgotten,” she said afterwards, in conversation with her lodger.  “I imagine he is a good deal upset in his mind; your bouncin’ in and claimin’ to be the ’evil influence’ put him ’way off his course and he hasn’t got his bearin’s yet.  He’s probably tryin’ to think his way through the fog and he won’t talk till he sees a light, or thinks he sees one.  I wish to goodness the light would be so strong that he’d see through Marietta Hoag and all her foolishness, but I’m afraid that’s too much to expect.”

Her surmise was correct, for a few days later the captain met Galusha on the road leading to the village and, taking the little man by the arm, became confidential.

“Mr. Bangs,” he said, “I cal’late you must think it’s kind of queer my not sayin’ a word to you about what happened t’other night over to the house.”

Galusha, who had been thinking of something else and was mentally thousands of miles away—­on the banks of the Nile, in fact—­ regarded him rather vacantly.

“Eh?  Oh—­um—­yes, of course,” he stammered.  “I beg your pardon.”

“No reason why you should beg my pardon.  I don’t blame you for thinkin’ so.  It’s natural.”

“Yes—­yes, of course, of course.  But I don’t know that I quite comprehend.  Of what were you speaking, Captain Hallett?”

The captain explained.  “Of course you think it’s queer that I haven’t said a word about what Julia told us,” he went on.  “Eh?  Don’t you?”