The Grey Room
by Eden Phillpotts
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

by Eden Phillpotts

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
    I.   THE HOUSE PARTY
   II.   AN EXPERIMENT
  III.   AT THE ORIEL
   IV.   "BY THE HAND OF GOD"
    V.   THE UNSEEN MOVES
   VI.   THE ORDER FROM LONDON
  VII.   THE FANATIC
VIII.   THE LABORS OF THE FOUR
   IX.   THE NIGHT WATCH
    X.   SIGNOR VERGILIO MANNETTI
   XI.   PRINCE DJEM
  XII.   THE GOLDEN BULL
XIII.   TWO NOTES

CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE PARTY

The piers of the main entrance of Chadlands were of red brick, and
upon each reposed a mighty sphere of grey granite. Behind them
stretched away the park, where forest trees, nearly shorn of their
leaves at the edge of winter, still answered the setting sun with
fires of thinning foliage. They sank away through stretches of
brake fern, and already amid their trunks arose a thin, blue
haze - breath of earth made visible by coming cold. There was frost
in the air, and the sickle of a new moon hung where dusk of evening
dimmed the green of the western sky.

The guns were returning, and eight men with three women arrived at
the lofty gates. One of the party rode a grey pony, and a woman
walked on each side of him. They chattered together, and the
little company of tweed - clad people passed into Chadlands Park and
trudged forward, where the manor house rose half a mile ahead.

Then an old man emerged from a lodge, hidden behind a grove of
laurel and bay within the entrance, and shut the great gates of
scroll iron. They were of a flamboyant Italian period, and more
arrestive than distinguished. Panelled upon them, and belonging
to a later day than they, had been imposed two iron coats of arms,
with crest above and motto beneath  -  the heraldic bearings of the
present owner of Chadlands. He set store upon such things, but
was not responsible for the work. A survival himself, and steeped
in ancient opinions, his coat, won in a forgotten age, interested
him only less than his Mutiny medal  -  his sole personal claim to
public honor. He had served in youth as a soldier, but was still
a subaltern when his father died and he came into his kingdom.

Now, Sir Walter Lennox, fifth baronet, had grown old, and his
invincible kindness of heart, his archaic principles, his great
wealth, and the limited experiences of reality, for which such
wealth was responsible, left him a popular and respected man. Yet
he aroused much exasperation in local landowners from his
generosity and scorn of all economic principles; and while his
tenants held him the very exemplar of a landlord, and his servants
worshipped him for the best possible reasons, his friends, weary
of remonstrance, were forced to forgive his bad precedents and a
mistaken liberality quite beyond the power of the average
unfortunate who lives by his land. But he managed his great manor
in his own lavish way, and marvelled that other men declared
difficulties with problems he so readily solved. That night, after
a little music, the Chadlands' house party drifted to
the billiard - room, and while most of the men, after a heavy day
far afield, were content to lounge by a great open hearth  where a
wood fire burned, Sir Walter, who had been on a pony most of the
time, declared himself unwearied, and demanded a game.

"No excuses, Henry," he said; and turned to a young man lounging
in an easy - chair outside the fireside circle.

The youth started. His eyes had been fixed on a woman sitting
beside the fire, with her hand in a man's. It was such an attitude
as sophisticated lovers would only assume in private but the pair
were not sophisticated and lovers still, though married. They
lacked self - consciousness, and the husband liked to feel his wife's
hand in his. After all, a thing impossible until you are married
may be quite seemly afterwards, and none of their amiable elders
regarded their devotion with cynicism.

"All right, uncle!" said Henry Lennox.

He rose - a big fellow with heavy shoulders, a clean - shaven,
youthful face, and flaxen hair. He had been handsome, save for a
nose with a broken bridge, but his pale brown eyes were fine, and
his firm mouth and chin well modelled. Imagination and reflection
marked his countenance.

Sir Walter claimed thirty points on his scoring board, and gave a
miss with the spot ball.

"I win to - night," he said.

He was a small, very upright man, with a face that seemed to belong
to his generation, and an expression seldom to be seen on a man
younger than seventy. Life had not puzzled him; his moderate
intellect had taken it as he found it, and, through the magic
glasses of good health, good temper, and great wealth, judged
existence a desirable thing and quite easy to conduct with credit.
"You only want patience and a brain," he always declared. Sir
Walter wore an eyeglass. He was growing bald, but preserved a pair
of grey whiskers still of respectable size. His face, indeed,
belied him, for it was moulded in a stern pattern. One had guessed
him a martinet until his amiable opinions and easy - going
personality were mainfested. The old man was not vain; he knew that
a world very different from his own extended round about him. But
he was puzzle-headed, and had never been shaken from his life-long
complacency by circumstances. He had been disappointed in love as
a young man, and only married late in life. He had no son, and was
a widower - facts that, to his mind, quite dwarfed his good fortune
in every other respect. He held the comfortable doctrine that
things are always levelled up, and he honestly believed that he had
suffered as much sorrow and disappointment as any Lennox in the
history of the race.

His only child and her cousin, Henry Lennox, had been brought up
together and were of an age - both now twenty - six. The lad was
his uncle's heir, and would succeed to Chadlands and the title;
and it had been Sir Walter's hope that he and Mary might marry.
Nor had the youth any objection to such a plan. Indeed, he loved
Mary well enough; there was even thought to be a tacit
understanding between them, and they grew up in a friendship which
gradually became ardent on the man's part, though it never ripened
upon hers. But she knew that her father keenly desired this
marriage, and supposed that it would happen some day.

They were, however, not betrothed when the war burst upon Europe,
and Henry, then one - and twenty, went from the Officers' Training
Corps to the Fifth Devons, while his cousin became attached to the
Red Cross and nursed at Plymouth. The accident terminated their
shadowy romance and brought real love into the woman's life, while
the man found his hopes at an end. He was drafted to Mesopotamia,
speedily fell sick of jaundice, was invalided to India, and, on
returning to the front, saw service against the Turks. But chance
willed that he won no distinction. He did his duty under dreary
circumstances, while to his hatred of war was added the weight of
his loss when he heard that Mary had fallen in love. He was an
ingenuous, kindly youth - a typical Lennox, who had developed an
accomplishment at Harrow and suffered for it by getting his nose
broken when winning the heavy - weight championship of the public
schools in his nineteenth year. In the East he still boxed, and
after his love story was ended, the epidemic of poetry-making took
Henry also, and he wrote a volume of harmless verse, to the
undying amazement of his family.

For Mary Lennox the war had brought a sailor husband. Captain
Thomas May, wounded rather severely at Jutland, lost his heart to
the plain but attractive young woman with a fine figure who nursed
him back to strength, and, as he vowed, had saved his life. He
was an impulsive man of thirty, brown-bearded, black-eyed, and
hot-tempered. He came from a little Somerset vicarage and was the
only son of a clergyman, the Rev. Septimus May. Knowing the lady
as "Nurse Mary" only, and falling passionately in love for the
first time in his life, he proposed on the day he was allowed to
sit up, and since Mary Lennox shared his emotions, also for the
first time, he was accepted before he even knew her name.

It is impossible to describe the force of love's advent for Mary
Lennox. She had come to believe herself as vaguely committed to
her cousin, and imagined that her affection for Henry amounted to
as much as she was ever likely to feel for a man. But reality
awakened her, and its glory did not make her selfish, since her
nature was not constructed so to be; it only taught her what love
meant, and convinced her that she could never marry anybody on
earth but the stricken sailor. And this she knew long before he
was well enough to give a sign that he even appreciated her
ministry. The very whisper of his voice sent a thrill through her
before he had gained strength to speak aloud. And his deep tones,
when she heard them, were like no voice that had fallen on her ear
till then. The first thing that indicated restoring health was
his request that his beard might be trimmed; and he was making love
to her three days after he had been declared out of danger. Then
did Mary begin to live, and looking back, she marvelled how horses
and dogs and a fishing-rod had been her life till now. The
revelation bewildered her and she wrote her emotions in many long
pages to her cousin. The causes of such changes she did not indeed
specify, but he read between the lines, and knew it was a man and
not the war that had so altered and deepened her outlook. He had
never done it, and he could not be angry with her now, for she had
pretended no ardor of emotion to him. Young though he was, he
always feared that she liked him not after the way of a lover. He
had hoped to open her eyes some day, but it was given to another to
do so.

He felt no surprise, therefore, when news of her engagement reached
him from herself. He wrote the letter of his life in reply, and
was at pains to laugh at their boy-and-girl attachment,  and lessen
any regret she might feel on his account. Her father took it
somewhat hardly at first, for he held that more than sufficient
misfortunes, to correct the balance of prosperity in his favor,
had already befallen him. But he was deeply attached to his
daughter, and her magical change under the new and radiant
revelation convinced him that she had now awakened to an emotional
fulness of life which could only be the outward sign of love. That
she was in love for the first time also seemed clear; but he would
not give his consent until he had seen her lover and heard all
there was to know about him. That, however, did not alarm Mary,
for she believed that Thomas May must prove a spirit after Sir
Walter's heart. And so he did. The sailor was a gentleman; he
had proposed without the faintest notion to whom he offered his
penniless hand, and when he did find out, was so bewildered that
Mary assured her father she thought he would change his mind.

"If I had not threatened him with disgrace and breach of promise,
I do think he would have thrown me over," she said.

And now they had been wedded for six months, and Mary sat by the
great log fire with her hand in Tom's. The sailor was on leave,
but expected to return to his ship at Plymouth in a day or two.
Then his father-in-law had promised to visit the great cruiser, for
the Navy was a service of which he knew little. Lennoxes had all
been soldiers or clergymen since a great lawyer founded the race.

The game of billiards proceeded, and Henry caught his uncle in the
eighties and ran out with an unfinished fifteen. Then Ernest
Travers and his wife - old and dear friends of Sir Walter -  played
a hundred up, the lady receiving half the game. Mr. Travers was a
Suffolk man, and had fagged for Sir Walter at Eton. Their
comradeship had lasted a lifetime, and no year passed without
reciprocal visits. Travers also looked at life with the eyes of a
wealthy man. He was sixty-five, pompous, large, and rubicund - a
"backwoodsman" of a pattern obsolescent. His wife, ten years
younger than himself, loved pleasure, but she had done more than
her duty, in her opinion, and borne him two sons and a daughter.
They were colorless, kind-hearted people who lived in a circle of
others like themselves. The war had sobered them, and at an early
stage robbed them of their younger boy.

Nelly Travers won her game amid congratulations, and Tom May
challenged another woman, a Diana, who lived for sport and had
joined the house party with her uncle, Mr. Felix Fayre-Michell.
But Millicent Fayre - Michell refused.

"I've shot six partridges, a hare, and two pheasants to-day," said
the girl, "and I'm half asleep."

Other men were present also of a type not dissimilar. It was a
conventional gathering of rich nobodies, each a big frog in his
own little puddle, none known far beyond it and none with
sufficient intellect or ability to create for himself any position
in the world save that won by the accident of money made by their
progenitors.

Had it been necessary for any of them to earn his living, only in
some very modest capacity and on a very modest plane might they
have done so. Of the entire company only one - the youngest
- could claim even the celebrity that attached to his little
volume of war verses.

And now upon the lives of these every-day folk was destined to
break an event unique and extraordinary. Existence, that had
meandered without personal incident save of a description common
to them all, was, within twelve hours, to confront men and women
alike with reality. They were destined to endure at close quarters
an occurrence so astounding and unparalleled that, for once in
their lives, they would find themselves interesting to the wider
world beyond their own limited circuit, and, for their friends and
acquaintance, the centre of a nine days' wonder.

Most of them, indeed, merely touched the hem of the mystery and
were not involved therein, but even for them a reflected glory
shone. They were at least objects of attraction elsewhere, and for
many months furnished conversation of a more interesting and
exciting character than any could ever claim to have provided
before.

The attitude to such an event, and the opinions concerning it, of
such people might have been pretty accurately predicted; nor would
it be fair to laugh at their terror and bewilderment, their
confusion of tongues and the fatuous theories they adventured by
way of explanation. For wiser than they - men experienced in the
problems of humanity and trained to solve its enigmas - were
presently in no better case.

A very trivial and innocent remark was prelude to the disaster; and
had the speaker guessed what his jest must presently mean in terms
of human misery, grief, and horror, it is certain enough that he
would not have spoken.

The women were gone to bed and the men sat around the fire smoking
and admiring Sir Walter's ancient blend of whisky. He himself had
just flung away the stump of his cigar and was admonishing his
son-in-law."Church to - morrow, Tom. None of your larks. When
first you came to see me, remember, you went to church twice on
Sunday like a lamb. I'll have no backsliding."

"Mary will see to that, governor."

"And you, Henry."

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-Micheil 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?

"My son-in-law has a striking case in his own recent experience.
He actually knows a man who was going to sail on the Lusitania, and
his greatest friend on earth, a soldier who fell on the Maine,
appeared to him and advised him not to do so. Tom's acquaintance
could not say that he heard words uttered, but he certainly
recognized his dead friend as he stood by his bedside, and he
received into his mind a clear warning before the vision disappeared.
Is that so, Tom?"

"Exactly so, sir. And Jack Thwaites - that was the name of the
man in New York - told four others about it, and three took his
tip and didn't sail. The fourth went; but he wasn't drowned. He
came out all right."

"The departed are certainly proved to appear in their own ghostly
persons - nay, they often have been seen to do so," admitted
Travers. "But I will never believe they are at our beck and call,
to bang tambourines or move furniture. We cannot ring up the dead
as we ring up the living on a telephone. The idea is insufferable
and indecent. Neither can anybody be used as a mouth-piece in that
way, or tell us the present position or occupation and interests
of a dead man - or what he smokes, or how his liquor tastes. Such
ideas degrade our impressions of life beyond the grave. They are,
if I may say so, disgustingly anthropomorphic. How can we even
take it for granted that our spirits will retain a human form and
human attributes after death?"

"It would be both weak - minded and irreligious to attempt to get
at these things, no doubt," declared Colonel Vane.

"And they make confusion worse confounded by saying that evil
spirits pretend sometimes to hoodwink us by posing as good spirits.
Now, that's going too far," said Henry Lennox.

"But your own ghost, Sir Walter?" asked Fayre-Michell. "It is a
curious fact that most really ancient houses have some such
addition. Is it a family spectre? Is it fairly well authenticated?
Does it reign in a particular spot of house or garden? I ask from
no idle curiosity. It is a very interesting subject if approached
in a proper spirit, as the Psychical Research Society, of which I
am a member, does approach it."

"I am unprepared to admit that we have a ghost at all," repeated
Sir Walter. "Ancient houses, as you say, often get some legend
tacked on to them, and here a garden walk, or there a room, or
passage, is associated with something uncanny and contrary to
experience. This is an old Tudor place, and has been tinkered and
altered in successive generations. We have one room at the
eastern end of the great corridor which always suffered from a bad
reputation. Nobody has ever seen anything in our time, and neither
my father nor grandfather ever handed down any story of a personal
experience. It is a bedroom, which you shall see, if you care to
do so. One very unfortunate and melancholy thing happened in it.
That was some twelve years ago, when Mary was still a child - two
years after my dear wife died."

"Tell us nothing that can cause you any pain, Walter," said Ernest
Travers.

"It caused me very acute pain at the time. Now it is old history
and mercifully one can look back with nothing but regret. One must,
however, mention an incident in my father's time, though it has
nothing to do with my own painful experience. However, that is
part of the story - if story it can be called. A death occurred
in the Grey Room when I was a child. Owing to the general vague
feeling entertained against it, we never put guests there, and so
long ago as my father's day it was relegated to a store place and
lumber-store. But one Christmas, when we were very full, there
came quite unexpectedly on Christmas Eve an aunt of my father - an
extraordinary old character who never did anything that might be
foreseen. She had never come to the family reunion before, yet
appeared on this occasion, and declared that, as this was going to
be her last Christmas on earth, she had felt it right to join the
clan - my father being the head of the family. Her sudden advent
strained our resources, I suppose, but she herself reminded us of
the Grey Room, and, on hearing that it was empty, insisted on
occupying it. The place is a bedroom, and my father, who personally
entertained no dislike or dread of it, raised not the least
objection to the strong - minded old lady's proposal. She retired,
and was found dead on Christmas morning. She had not gone to bed,
but was just about to do so, apparently, when she had fallen down
and died. She was eighty-eight, had undergone a lengthy coach
journey from Exeter, and had eaten a remarkably good dinner before
going to bed. Her maid was not suspected, and the doctor held her
end in no way unusual. It was certainly never associated with
anything but natural causes. Indeed, only events of much later
date served to remind me of the matter. Then one remembered the
spoiled Christmas festivities and the callous and selfish anger of
myself and various other young people that our rejoicings should
be spoiled and Christmas shorn of all its usual delights.

"But twelve years ago Mary fell ill of pneumonia - dangerously
- and a nurse had to be summoned in haste, since her own faithful
attendant, Jane Bond, who is still with us, could not attend her
both day and night. A telegram to the Nurses' Institute brought
Mrs. Gilbert Forrester - 'Nurse Forrester,' as she preferred to be
called. She was a little bit of a thing, but most attractive and
capable. She had been a nurse before she married a young medical
man, and upon his unfortunate death she returned to her profession.
She desired her bedroom to be as near the patient as possible, and
objected, when she found it arranged at the other end of the
corridor. 'Why not the next room?' she inquired; and I had to tell
her that the next room suffered from a bad name and was not used.
'A bad name - is it unwholesome?' she asked; and I explained that
traditions credited it with a sinister influence. 'In fact,' I
said, 'it is supposed to be haunted. Not,' I added, 'that anything
has ever been seen, or heard in my lifetime; but nervous people do
not like that sort of room, and I should never take the
responsibility of putting anybody into it without telling them.'
She laughed. 'I'm not in the least afraid of ghosts, Sir Walter,'
she said, 'and that must obviously be my room, if you please. It
is necessary I shonld be as near my patient as possible, so that I
can be called at once if her own nurse is anxious when I am not on
duty.'

"Well, we saw, of course, that she was perfectly right. She was a
fearless little woman, and chaffed Masters and the maids while they
lighted a fire and made the room comfortable. As a matter of fact,
it is an exceedingly pleasant room in every respect. Yet I
hesitated, and could not say that I was easy about it. I felt
conscious of a discomfort which even her indifference did not
entirely banish. I attributed it to my acute anxiety over Mary
- also to a shadow of - what? It may have been irritation at Nurse
Forrester's unconcealed contempt for my superstition. The Grey
Room is large and commodious with a rather fine oriel window above
our eastern porch. She was delighted, and rated me very amusingly
for my doubts. 'I hope you'll never call such a lovely room
haunted again after I have gone,' said she.

"Mary took to her, and really seemed easier after she had been in
the sick-room an hour. She loved young people, and had an art to
win them. She was also a most accomplished and quick-witted nurse.
There seemed to be quite a touch of genius about her. Her voice
was melodious and her touch gentle. I could appreciate her skill,
for I was never far from my daughter's side during that anxious
day. Mrs. Forrester came at the critical hours, but  declared
herself very sanguine from the first.

"Night fell; the child was sleeping and Jane Bond arrived to
relieve the other about ten o'clock. Then the lady retired,
directed that she should be called at seven o'clock, or at any
moment sooner, if Jane wanted her. I sat with Jane I remember
until two, and then turned in myself. Before I did so, Mary drank
some milk and seemed to be holding her strength well. I was worn
out, and despite my anxiety fell into deep sleep, and did not wake
until my man called me half an hour earlier than usual. What he
told me brought me quickly to my senses and out of bed. Nurse
Forrester had been called at seven o'clock, but had not responded.
Nor could the maid open the door, for it was locked. A quarter
of an hour later the housekeeper and Jane Bond had loudly summoned
her without receiving any reply. Then they called me.

"I could only direct that the door should be forced open as speedily
as possible, and we were engaged in this task when Mannering, my
medical man, who shot with us to-day, arrived to see Mary. I told
him what had happened. He went in to look at my girl, and felt
satisfied that she was holding her own well - indeed, he thought
her stronger; and just as he told me so the door into the Grey Room
yielded. Mannering and my housekeeper, Mrs. Forbes, entered the
room, while Masters, Fred Caunter, my footman, who had broken down
the lock, and I remained outside.

"The doctor presently called me, and I went in. Nurse Forrester was
apparently lying awake in bed, but she was not awake. She slept
the sleep of death. Her eyes were open, but glazed, and she was
already cold. Maunering declared that she had been dead for a good
many hours. Yet, save for a slight but hardly unnatural pallor,
not a trace of death marked the poor little creature. An expression
of wonder seemed to sit on her features, but otherwise she was
looking much as I had last seen her, when she said 'Good-night.'
Everything appeared to be orderly in the room. It was now flooded
with the first light of a sunny morning, for she had drawn her
blind up and thrown her window wide open. The poor lady passed out
of life without a sound or signal to indicate trouble, for in the
silence of night Jane Bond must have heard any alarm had she raised
one. To me it seemed impossible to believe that we gazed upon a
corpse. But so it was, though, as a matter of form, the doctor
took certain measures to restore her. But animation was not
suspended; it had passed beyond recall.

"There was held a post-mortem examination, and an inquest, of
course; and Mannering, who felt deep professional interest, asked
a friend from Plymouth to conduct the examination. Their report
astounded all concerned and crowned the mystery, for not a trace
of any physical trouble could be discovered to explain Nurse
Forrester's death. She was thin, but organically sound in every
particular, nor could the slightest trace of poison be reported.
Life had simply left her without any physical reason. Search
proved that she had brought no drugs or any sort of physic with her,
and no information to cast the least light came from the institution
for which she worked. She was a favorite there, and the news of
her sudden death brought sorrow to her many personal friends.

"The physicians felt their failure to find a natural and scientific
cause for her death. Indeed, Dr. Mordred, from Plymouth, an eminent
pathologist, trembled not a little about it, as Mannering afterwards
told me. The finite mind of science hates, apparently, to be faced
with any mystery beyond its power to explain. It regards such an
incident as a challenge to human intellect, and does not remember
that we are encompassed with mystery as with a garment, and that
every day and every night are laden with phenomena for which man
cannot account, and never will.

"Nurse Forrester's relations - a sister and an old mother - came to
the funeral. Also her dearest woman friend, another professional
nurse, whose name I do not recollect. She was buried at Chadlands,
and her grave lies near our graves. Mary loves to tend it still,
though to her the dead woman is but a name. Yet to this day she
declares that she can remember Nurse Forrester's voice through her
fever - gentle, yet musical and cheerful. As for me, I never
mourned so brief an acquaintance so heartily. To part with the
bright creature, so full of life and kindliness, and to stand beside
her corpse but eight or nine hours afterwards, was a chastening and
sad experience."

Sir Walter became pensive, and did not proceed for the space of a
minute. None, however, spoke until he had again done so:

"That is the story of what is called our haunted room, so far as
this generation is concerned. What grounds for its sinister
reputation existed in the far past I know not - only a vague, oral
tradition came to my father from his, and it is certain that neither
of them attached any personal importance to it. But after such a
peculiar and unfortunate tragedy, you will not be surprised that I
regarded the chamber as ruled out from my domiciliary scheme, and
denied it to any future guests."

"Do you really associate the lady's death with the room, Walter?"
asked Mr. Travers.

"Honestly I do not, Ernest. And for this reason: I deny that any
malignant, spiritual personality would ever be permitted by the
Creator to exercise physical powers over the living, or destroy
human beings without reason or justice. The horror of such a
possibility to the normal mind is sufficient argument against it.
Causes beyond our apparent knowledge were responsible for the death
of Nurse Forrester; but who shall presume to say that was really so?
Why imagine anything so irregular? I prefer to think that had the
post-mortem been conducted by somebody else, subtle reasons for her
death might have appeared. Science is fallible, and even specialists
make outrageous mistakes."

"You believe she died from natural causes beyond the skill of those
particular surgeons to discover?" asked Colonel Vane.

"That is my opinion. Needless to say, I should not tell Mannering
so. But to what other conclusion can a reasonable man come? I do
not, of course, deny the supernatural, but it is weak-minded to
fall back upon it as the line of least resistance."

Then Fayre-Michell repeated his question. He had listened with
intense interest to the story.

"Would you deny that ghosts, so to call them, can be associated
with one particular spot, to the discomfort and even loss of
reason, or life, of those that may be in that spot at the
psychological moment, Sir Walter?"

"Emphatically I would deny it," declared the elder. "However
tragic the circumstances that might have befallen an unfortunate
being in life at any particular place, it is, in my opinion,
monstrous to suppose his disembodied spirit will hereafter be
associated with the place. We must be reasonable, Felix. Shall
the God Who gave us reason be Himself unreasonable?"

"And yet there are authentic - However, I admit the weight of your
argument."

"At the same time," ventured Mr. Travers, "none can deny that many
strange and terrible things happen, from hidden causes quite beyond
human power to explain."

"They do, Ernest; and so I lock up my Grey Room and rule it out of
our scheme of existence. At present it is full of lumber - old
furniture and a pack of rubbishy family portraits that only deserve
to be burned, but will some day be restored, I suppose."

"Not on my account, Uncle Walter," said Henry Lennox. "I have no
more respect for them than yourself. They are hopeless as art."

"No, no one must restore them. The art is I believe very bad, as
you say, but they were most worthy people, and this is the sole
memorial remaining of them."

"Do let us see the room, governor," urged Tom May. "Mary showed
it to me the first time I came here, and I thought it about the
jolliest spot in the house."

"So it is, Tom," said Henry. "Mary says it should be called the
Rose Room, not the grey one."

"All who care to do so can see it," answered Sir Walter, rising.
"We will look in on our way to bed. Get the key from my key-cabinet
in the study. Henry, It's labelled 'Grey Room.'"

CHAPTER II

AN EXPERIMENT

Ernest Travers, Felix Fayre-Michell, Tom May, and Colonel Vane
followed Sir Walter upstairs to a great corridor, which ran the
length of the main front, and upon which opened a dozen bedrooms
and dressing-rooms. They proceeded to the eastern extremity. It
was lighted throughout, and now their leader took off an electric
bulb from a sconce on the wall outside the room they had come to
visit.

"There is none in there," he explained, "though the light was
installed in the Grey Room as elsewhere when I started my own plant
twenty years ago. My father never would have it. He disliked it
exceedingly, and believed it aged the eyes."

Henry arrived with the key. The door was unlocked, and the light
established. The party entered a large and lofty chamber with
ceiling of elaborate plaster work and silver-grey walls, the paper
on which was somewhat tarnished. A pattern of dim, pink roses as
large as cabbages ran riot over it. A great oriel window looked
east, while a smaller one opened upon the south. Round the curve
of the oriel ran a cushioned seat eighteen inches above the ground,
while on the western side of the room, set in the internal wall,
was a modern fireplace with a white Adams mantel above it. Some
old, carved chairs stood round the walls, and in one corner, stacked
together, lay half a dozen old oil portraits, grimy and faded. They
called for the restorer, but were doubtfully worth his labors. Two
large chests of drawers, with rounded bellies, and a very beautiful
washing-stand also occupied places round the room, and against the
inner wall rose a single, fourposter bed of Spanish chestnut, also
carved. A grey, self-colored carpet covered the floor, and on one
of the chests stood a miniature bronze copy of the Faun of
Praxiteles.

The apartment was bright and cheerful of aspect. Nothing gloomy
or depressing marked it, nor a suggestion of the sinister.

"Could one wish for a more amiable looking room?" asked
Fayre-Michell.

They gazed round them, and Ernest Travers expressed admiration at
the old furniture.

"My dear Walter, why hide these things here?" he asked. "They are
beautiful, and may be valuable, too."

"I've been asked the same question before," answered the owner.
"And they are valuable. Lord Bolsover offered me a thousand
guineas for those two chairs; but the things are heirlooms in a
sort of way, and I shouldn't feel justified in parting with them.
My grandfather was furniture mad-spent half his time collecting
old stuff on the Continent. Spain was his happy hunting ground."

"It's positively a shame to doom these chairs to a haunted room,
uncle," declared Henry.

But the other shook his head and smothered a yawn.

"The house is too full as it is." he said.

"Mary wants you to scrap dozens of things," replied his nephew.
"Then there'd be plenty of room."

"You'll do what you please when your turn comes, and no doubt cast
out my tusks and antlers and tiger-skins, which I know you don't
admire. Wait in patience, Henry. And we will now go to bed,"
answered the elder. "I am fatigued, and it must be nearly midnight."

Then Tom May brought their thoughts back to the reason of the visit.

"Look here, governor," he said. "It's a scandal to give a champion
room like this a bad name and shut it up. You've fallen into the
habit, but you know it's all nonsense. Mary loves this room. I'll
make you a sporting offer. Let me sleep in it to-night, and then,
when I report a clean bill tomorrow, you can throw it open again
and announce it is forgiven without a stain on its character.
You've just said you don't believe spooks have the power to hurt
anybody. Then let me turn in here."

Sir Walter, however, refused.

"No, Tom; most certainly not. It's far too late to go over the
ground again and explain why, but I don't wish it."

"A milder-mannered room was never seen, said Ernest Travers. "You
must let me look at it by daylight, and bring Nelly. The ceiling,
too, is evidently very fine-finer even than the one in my room."

"The ceilings here were all the work of Italians in Tudor times,"
explained his friend. "They are Elizabethan. The plaster is
certainly wonderful, and my ceilings are considered as good as
anything in the country, I believe."

He turned, and the rest followed him.

Henry removed the electric bulb, and restored it to its place
outside. Then his uncle gave him the key.

"Put it back in the cabinet," he said. "I won't go down again."

The party broke up, and all save Lennox and the sailor went to
their rooms. The two younger men descended together and, when out
of ear-shot of his uncle, Henry spoke.

"Look here, Tom," he said, "you've given me a tip. I'm going to
camp out in the Grey Room to-night. Then, in the morning, I'll
tell Uncle Walter I have done so, and the ghost's number will be
up."

"Quite all right, old man - only the plan must be modified. I'll
sleep there. I'm death on it, and the brilliant inspiration was
mine, remember."

"You can't. He refused to let you."

"I didn't hear him."

"Oh, yes, you did-everybody did. Besides, this is fairly my task
- you won't deny that. Chadlands will be mine, some day, so it's
up to me to knock this musty yarn on the head once and for all.
Could anything be more absurd than shutting up a fine room like
that? I'm really rather ashamed of Uncle Walter."

"Of course it's absurd but, honestly, I'm rather keen about this.
I'd dearly love to add a medieval phantom to my experiences, and
only wish I thought anything would show up. I beg you'll raise no
objection. It was my idea, and I very much wish to make the
experiment. Of course, I don't believe in anything supernatural."

They went back to the billiard-room, dismissed Fred Caunter, the
footman, who was waiting to put out the lights, and continued their
discussion. The argument began to grow strenuous, for each proved
determined, and who owned the stronger will seemed a doubtful
question.

For a time, since no conclusion could satisfy both, they abandoned
the centre of contention and debated, as their elders had done, on
the general question. Henry declared himself not wholly convinced.
He adopted an agnostic attitude, while Tom frankly disbelieved.
The one preserved an open mind, the other scoffed at apparitions
in general.

"It's humbug to say sailors are superstitious now," he asserted.
"They might have been, but my experience is that they are no more
credulous than other people in these days. Anyway, I'm not. Life
is a matter of chemistry. There's no mumbo jumbo about it, in my
opinion. Chemical analysis has reached down to hormones and
enzymes and all manner of subtle secretions discovered by this
generation of inquirers; but it's all organic. Nobody has ever
found anything that isn't. Existence depends on matter, and when
the chemical process breaks down, the organism perishes and leaves
nothing. When a man can't go on breathing, he's dead, and there's
an end of him."

But Henry had read modern science also.

"What about the vital spark, then? Biologists don't turn down the
theory of vitalism, do they?"

"Most of them do, who count, my dear chap. The presence of a vital
spark-a spark that cannot be put out - is merely a theory with
nothing to prove it. When he dies, the animating principle doesn't
leave a man, and go off on its own. It dies too. It was part of
the man-as much as his heart or brain."

"That's only an opinion. Nobody can be positive. We don't know
anything about what life really means, and we haven't got the
machinery to find out."

"By analogy we can," argued Tom. "Where are you going to draw the
line? Life is life, and a sponge is just as much alive as a
herring; a nettle is just as much alive as an oak-tree; and an
oak-tree is just as much alive as you are. What becomes of its
vital spark when you eat an oyster?"

"You wouldn't believe in a life after death at all, then?"

"It's a pure assumption, Henry. I'd like to believe in it - who
wouldn't? Because, if you honestly did, it would transform this
life into something infinitely different from what it is."

"It ought to-yet it doesn't seem to."

"It ought to, certainly. If you believe this life is only the
portal to another of much greater importance, then-well, there you
are. Nothing  matters but trying to make everybody else believe
t, too. But as a matter of fact, the people who do believe it, or
think they do, seem to me just as concentrated on this life and
just as much out to get the very best they can from it, and wring
it dry, as I am, who reckon it's all."

"They believe as a matter of course, and don't seem to realize how
much their belief ought to imply," confessed Henry.

"Why do they believe? Because most of them haven't really thought
about it more than a turnip thinks. They dwell in a foggy sort of
way on the future life when they go to church on Sundays; then they
return home and forget all about it till next Sunday."

Lennox brought him back to the present difference.

"Well, seeing you laugh at ghosts, and I remain doubtful, it's
only fair that I sleep in the Grey Room. You must see that.
Ghosts hate people who don't believe in them. They'd cold shoulder
you; but in my case they might feel I was good material, worth
convincing. They might show up for me in a friendly spirit. If
they show for you, it will probably be to bully you."

Tom laughed.

"That's what I want. I'd like to have it out and talk sense to a
spook, and show him what an ass he's making of himself. The
governor was right about that. When Fayre-Michell asked if he
believed in them loafing about a place where they'd been murdered
or otherwise maltreated, he rejected the idea."

"Yet a woman certainly died there, and without a shadow of reason."

"She probably died for a very good reason, only we don't happen to
know it."

Henry tried a different argument.

"You're married, and you matter; I'm not married, and don't matter
to anybody."

"Humbug!"

"Mary wouldn't like it, anyway; you know that."

"True-she'd hate it. But she won't know anything about it till
to-morrow. She always sleeps in her old nursery when she comes
here, and I'm down the corridor at the far end. She'd have a fit
if she knew I'd turned in next door to her and was snoozing in the
Grey Room; but she won't know till I tell her of my rash act
to-morrow. Don't think I'm a fool. Nobody loves life better than
I do, and nobody has better reason to. But I'm positive that this
is all rank nonsense, and so are you really. We know there's
nothing in the room with a shadow of supernatural danger about it.
Besides, you wouldn't want to sleep there so badly if you believed
anything wicked was waiting for you. You're tons cleverer than I
am - so you must agree about that."

Lennox was bound to confess that he entertained no personal fear.
They still argued, and the clock struck midnight. Then the sailor
made a suggestion.

"Since you're so infernally obstinate, I'll do this. We'll toss up,
and the winner can have the fun. That's fair to both."

The other agreed; he tossed a coin, and May called "tails," and won.

He was jubilant, while Henry showed a measure of annoyance. The
other consoled him.

"It's better so, old man. You're highly strung and nervy, and a
poet and all that sort of thing. I'm no better than a prize ox,
and don't know what nerves mean. I can sleep anywhere, anyhow.
If you can sleep in a submarine, you bet you can in a nice, airy
Elizabethan room, even if it is haunted. But it's not; that's the
whole point. There's not a haunted room in the world. Get me
your service revolver, like a good chap."

Henry was silent, and Tom rose to make ready for his vigil.

"I'm dog-tired, anyhow," he said. "Nothing less than Queen
Elizabeth herself will keep me awake, if it does appear."

Then the other surprised him.

"Don't think I want to go back on it. You've won the right to make
the experiment - if we ignore Uncle Walter. But-well, you'll laugh,
yet, on my honor, Tom, I've got a feeling I'd rather you didn't.
It isn't nerves. I'm not nervy any more than you are. I'm not
suggesting that I go now, of course. But I do ask you to think
better of it and chuck the thing."

"Why?"

"Well, one can't help one's feelings. I do feel a rum sort of
conviction at the bottom of my mind that it's not good enough. I
can't explain; there are no words for it that I know, but it's
growing on me. Intuition, perhaps."

"Intuition of what?"

"I can't tell you. But I ask you not to go."

"You were going if you'd won the toss?"

"I know."

"Then your growing intuition is only because I won it. Hanged if
I don't think you want to funk me, old man!"

"I couldn't do that. But it's different me going and you going.
I've got nothing to live for. Don't think I'm maudlin, or any rot
of that sort; but you know all about the past. I've never
mentioned it to you, and, of course, you haven't to me; and I never
should have. But I will now. I loved Mary with all my heart and
soul, Tom. She didn't know how much, and probably I didn't either.
But that's done, and no man on earth rejoices in her great happiness
more than I do. And no man on earth is going to be a better or a
truer friend to you and her than, please God, I shall be. But that
being so, can't you see the rest? My life ended in a way when the
dream of my life ended. I attach no importance to living for
itself, and if anything final happened to me it wouldn't leave a
blank anywhere. You're different. In sober honesty you oughtn't
to run into any needless danger - real or imaginary. I'm thinking
of Mary only when I say that - not you."

"But I deny the danger."

Yes; only you might listen. So did I, but I eny it no longer. The
case is altered when I tell you in all seriousness - when I take
my oath if you like - that I do believe now there is something in
this. I don't say it's supernatural, and I don't say it isn't; but
I do feel deeply impressed in my mind now, and it's growing stronger
every minute, that there's something here out of the common and
really infernally dangerous."

The other looked at him in astonishment.

"What bee has got into your bonnet?"

"Don't call it that. It's a conviction, Tom. Do be guided by me,
old chap!"

The sailor flushed a little, emptied his glass, and rose.

"If you really wanted to choke me off, you chose a funny way to do
so. Surely it only needed this to determine anybody. If you, as
a sane person, honestly believe there's a pinch of danger in that
blessed place, then I certainly sleep there to-night, or else wake
there."

"Let me come, too, then, Tom."

"That be damned for a yarn! Ghosts don't show up for two people
- haven't got pluck enough. If I get any sport, I'll be quite
straight about it, and you shall try your luck to-morrow."

"I can only make it a favor; and not for your own sake, either."

"I know. Mary will be sleeping the sleep of the just in the next
room. how little she'll guess! Perhaps, if I see an apparition
worthy of the Golden Age, I'll call her up."

"Do oblige me, May."

"In anything on earth but this thing. It's really too late now.
Don't you see you've defeated your own object? You mustn't ask me
to throw up the sponge to your sudden intuition of danger sprung
on me at the eleventh hour. I won the toss, and can't take my
orders from you, old chap, can I?"

The other, in his turn, grew a little warm.

"All right. I've spoken. I think you're rather a fool to be so
obstinate. It isn't as if a nervous old woman was talking to you.
But you'll go your own way. It doesn't matter a button to me, and
I only made it a favor for somebody else's sake."

"We'll leave it at that, then. May I trouble you for the key?
And your revolver, too. I haven't got mine here."

Henry hesitated. The key was in the pocket of his jacket.

"It is a matter of honor, Lennox," said the sailor.

The other handed over the key on this speech, and prepared to go.

"I'll get the revolver," he said.

"Thanks. Look me up in the morning, if you're awake first," added
May; but the other did not answer.

He let Tom precede him, and then turned out the lights. Other
lights he also extinguished as they left the hall and ascended
the stairs. The younger's pride was struggling for mastery; but
he conquered it and spoke again.

"I wish to Heaven you could see it from another point of view than
your own, Tom."

"I have no point of view. You're rather exasperating, and don't
seem to understand that, even if I might have changed my mind
before, it's impossible now."

"That's really only a foolish sort of pride. If I chose my words
clumsily -  "

"You did. The devil and all his angels wouldn't make me climb down
now."

The younger left him, and returned in a minute or two with the
revolver.

"Good-night," he said.

"Good-night, old boy. Thank you. Loaded?"

"In all the chambers. Funny you should want it."

"Take it back, then."

But Henry did not answer, and they parted. Each sought his own
bedroom, and while Lennox retired at once and might have been
expected to pass a night more mentally peaceful than the other,
in reality it was not so.

The younger slept ill, while May suffered no emotion but annoyance.
He was contemptuous of Henry. It seemed to him that he had taken
a rather mean and unsporting line, nor did he believe for a moment
that he was honest. Lennox had a modern mind; he had been through
the furnace of war; he had received a first-class education. It
seemed impossible to imagine that he spoke the truth, or that his
sudden suspicion of real perils, beyond human power to combat,
could be anything but a spiteful attempt to put May off, after he
himself had lost the toss. Yet that seemed unlike a gentleman.
Then the allusion to Mary perturbed the sailor. He could not
quarrel with the words, but he resented the advice, seeing what it
was based upon.

His anger lessened swiftly, however, and before he started his
adventure he had dismissed Henry from his mind. He put on pyjamas
and a dressing-gown, took a candle, a railway-rug, his watch, and
the loaded revolver.

Then he walked quietly down the corridor to the Grey Room. On
reaching it his usual good temper returned, and he found himself
entirely happy and contented. He unlocked the forbidden entrance,
set his candle by the bed, and locked the door again from inside.
He rolled up his dressing-gown for a pillow, and placed his watch
and revolver and candle at his hand on a chair. A few broken
reflections drifted through his mind, as he yawned and prepared
to sleep. His brain brought up events of the day - a missed shot,
a good shot, lunch under a haystack with Mary and Fayre-Michell's
niece. She was smart and slowy and slangy - cheap every way
compared with Mary. What would his wife think if she knew he was
so near? Come to him for certain. He cordially hoped that he
might not be recalled to his ship; but there was a possibility of
it. It would be rather a lark to show the governor over the
Indomitable. She was a "hush-hush" ship - one of the wonders of
the Navy still. Funny that the Italian roof of the Grey Room
looked like a dome, thought it was really flat. A cunning trick
of perspective.

It was a still and silent night, moonless, very dark, and very
tranquil. He went to the window to throw it open.

Only a solitary being waked long that night at Chadlands, and only
a solitary mind suffered tribulation. But into the small hours
Henry Lennox endured the companionship of disquiet thoughts. He
could not sleep, and his brain, clear enough, retraced no passage
from the past day. Indeed the events of the day had sunk into
remote time. He was only concerned with the present, and he
wondered while he worried that he should be worrying. Yet a
proleptic instinct made him look forward. He had neither lied nor
exaggerated to May. From the moment of losing the toss, he honestly
experienced a strong, subjective impression of danger arising out
of the proposed attack on the mysteries of the Grey Room. It was,
indeed, that consciousness of greater possibilities in the adventure
than May admitted or imagined which made Lennox so insistent.
Looking back, he perceived many things, and chiefly that he had
taken a wrong line, and approached Mary's husband from a fatal
angle. Too late he recognized his error. It was inevitable that
a hint of suspected danger would confirm the sailor in his
resolution; and that such a hint should follow the spin of the
coin against Lennox, and be accompanied by the assurance that, had
he won, Henry would have proceeded, despite his intuitions, to do
what he now begged Tom not to do - that was a piece of clumsy work
which he deeply regretted.

At the hour when his own physical forces were lowest, his errors
of diplomacy forced themselves upon his mind. He wasted much time,
as all men do upon their beds, in anticipating to-morrow; in
considering what is going to happen, or what is not; in weighing
their own future words and deeds given a variety of contingencies.
For reason, which at first kept him, despite his disquiet, in the
region of the rational, grew weaker with Henry as the night
advanced; the shadow of trouble deepened as his weary wits lost
their balance to combat it. The premonition was as formless and
amorphous as a cloud, and, though he could not see any shape to
his fear, or define its limitations, it grew darker ere he slept.
He considered what might happen and, putting aside any lesser
disaster, tried to imagine what the morning would bring if May
actually succumbed.

For the moment the size of such an imaginary disaster served
curiously to lessen his uneasiness. Pushed to extremities, the
idea became merely absurd. He won a sort of comfort from such an
outrageous proposition, because it brought him back to the solid
ground of reason and the assurance that some things simply do not
happen. From this extravagant summit of horror, his fears gradually
receded. Such a waking nightmare even quieted his nerves when it
was past; for if a possibility presents a ludicrous side, then its
horror must diminish by so much. Moreover, Henry told himself that
if the threat of a disaster so absolute could really be felt by him,
it was his duty to rise at once, intervene, and, if necessary,
summon his uncle and force May to leave the Grey Room immediately.

This idea amused him again and offered another jest. The tragedy
really resolved into jests. He found himself smiling at the
picture of May being treated like a disobedient schoolboy. But
if that happened, and Tom was proclaimed the sinner, what must be
Henry's own fate? To win the reputation of an unsportsmanlike
sneak in Mary's opinion as well as Tom's. He certainly could call
upon nobody to help him now. But he might go and look up May
himself. That would be very sharply resented, however. He
travelled round and round in circles, then asked himself what he
would do and say to-morrow if anything happened to Tom - nothing,
of course, fatal, but something perhaps so grave that May himself
would be unable to explain it. In that case Henry could only state
facts exactly as they had occurred. But there would be a deuce of
a muddle if he had to make statements and describe the exact
sequence of recent incidents. Already he forgot the exact sequence.
It seemed ages since he parted from May. He broke off there, rose,
drank a glass of water, and lighted a cigarette. He shook himself
into wakefulness, condemned himself for this debauch of weak-minded
thinking, found the time to be three o'clock, and brushed the whole
cobweb tangle from his mind. He knew that sudden warmth after cold
will often induce sleep - a fact proved by incidents of his
campaigns - so he trudged up and down and opened his window and let
the cool breath of the night chill his forehead and breast for five
minutes.

This action calmed him, and he headed himself off from returning
to the subject. He felt that mental dread and discomfort were
only waiting to break out again; but he smothered them, returned
to bed, and succeeded in keeping his mind on neutral - tinted
matter until he fell asleep.

He woke again before he was called, rose and went to his bath. He
took it cold, and it refreshed him and cleared his head, for he
had a headache. Everything was changed, and the phantoms of his
imagination remained only as memories to be laughed at. He no
longer felt alarm or anxiety. He dressed presently, and guessing
that Tom, always the first to rise, might already be out of doors,
he strolled on to the terrace presently to meet him there.

Already he speculated whether an apology was due from him to May,
or whether he might himself expect one. It didn't matter. He knew
perfectly well that Tom was all right now, and that was the only
thing that signified.

CHAPTER III

AT THE ORIEL

Chadlands sprang into existence when the manor houses of England
- save for the persistence of occasional embattled parapets and
other warlike survivals of unrestful days now past - had obeyed
the laws of architectural evolution, and begun to approach a future
of cleanliness and comfort, rising to luxury hitherto unknown. The
development of this ancient mass was displayed in plan as much as
in elevation, and, at its date, the great mansion had stood for the
last word of perfection, when men thought on large lines and the
conditions of labour made possible achievements now seldom within
the power of a private purse. Much had since been done, but the
main architectural features were preserved, though the interior of
the great house was transformed.

The manor of Chadlands extended to some fifty thousand acres lying
in a river valley between the heights of Haldon on the east and
the frontiers of Dartmoor westerly. The little township was
connected by a branch with the Great Western Railway, and the
station lay five miles from the manor house. No more perfect
parklands, albeit on a modest scale, existed in South Devon, and
the views of the surrounding heights and great vale opening from
the estate caused pleasure alike to those contented with obvious
beauty and the small number of spectators who understood the
significance of what constitutes really distinguished landscape.

Eastward, long slopes of herbage and drifts of azaleas-a glorious
harmony of gold, scarlet, and orange in June-sloped upwards to
larch woods; while the gardens of pleasure, watered by a little
trout stream, spread beneath the manor house, and behind it rose
hot-houses and the glass and walled gardens of fruit and vegetables.
To the south and west opened park and vale, where receded forest
and fallow lands, until the grey ramparts of the moor ascending
beyond them hemmed in the picture.

Sir Walter Lennox had devoted himself to the sporting side of the
estate and had made it famous in this respect. His father, less
interested in shooting and hunting, had devoted time and means to
the flower gardens, and rendered them as rich as was possible in
his day; while earlier yet, Sir Walter's grandfather had been more
concerned for the interior, and had done much to enrich and
beautify it.

A great terrace stretched between the south front and a balustrade
of granite, that separated it from the gardens spreading at a lower
level. Here walked Henry Lennox and sought Tom May. It was now
past eight o'clock on Sunday morning, and he found himself alone.
The sun, breaking through heaviness of morning clouds, had risen
clear of Haldon Hills and cast a radiance, still dimmed by vapour,
over the glow of the autumn trees. Subdued sounds of birds came
from the glades below, and far distant, from the scrub at the edge
of the woods, pheasants were crowing. The morning sparkled, and,
in a scene so fair, Henry found his spirits rise. Already the
interview with Mary's husband on the preceding night seemed remote
and unreal. He was, however, conscious that he had made an ass of
himself, but he did not much mind, for it could not be said that
May had shone, either.

He called him, and, for reply, an old spaniel emerged from beneath,
climbed a flight of broad steps that ascended to the terrace, and
paddled up to Henry, wagging his tail. He was a very ancient hero,
whose record among the wild duck still remained a worthy memory
and won him honour in his declining days. The age of "Prince"
remained doubtful, but he was decrepit now - gone in the hams and
suffering from cataract of both eyes - a disease to which it is
impossible to minister in a dog. But his life was good to him; he
still got about, slept in the sun, and shared the best his master's
dish could offer. Sir Walter adored him, and immediately felt
uneasy if the creature did not appear when summoned. Often, had
he been invisible too long, his master would wander whistling round
his haunts. Then he would find him, or be himself found, and feel
easy again.

"Prince" went in to the open window of the breakfast-room, while
Henry, moved by a thought, walked round the eastern angle of the
house and looked up at the oriel window of the Grey Room, where
it hung aloft on the side of the wall, like a brilliant bubble,
and flashed with the sunshine that now irradiated the casement.
To his surprise he saw the window was thrown open and that May,
still in his pyjamas, knelt on the cushioned recess within and
looked out at the morning.

"Good lord, old chap!" he cried, "Needn't ask you if you have slept.
It's nearly nine o'clock."

But the other made no response whatever. He continued to gaze far
away over Henry's head at the sunrise, while the morning breeze
moved his dark hair.

"Tom! Wake up!" shouted Lennox again; but still the other did not
move a muscle. Then Henry noticed that he was unusually pale, and
something about his unwinking eyes also seemed foreign to an
intelligent expression. They were set, and no movement of light
played upon them. It seemed that the watcher was in a trance.
Henry felt his heart jump, and a sensation of alarm sharpened
his thought. For him the morning was suddenly transformed, and
fearing an evil thing had indeed befallen the other, he turned to
the terrace and entered the breakfast-room from it. The time was
now five minutes to nine, and as unfailing punctuality had ever
been a foible of Sir Walter, his guests usually respected it. Most
of them were already assembled, and Mary May, who was just stepping
into the garden, asked Henry if he had seen her husband.

"He's always the first to get up and the last to go to bed," she
said.

Bidding her good-morning, but not answering her question, the young
man hastened through the room and ascended to the corridor. Beneath,
Ernest Travers, a being of fussy temperament with a heart of gold,
spoke to Colonel Vane. Travers was clad in Sunday black, for he
respected tradition.

"Forgive me, won't you, but this is your first visit, and you don't
look much like church."

"Must we go to church, too ?" asked the colonel blankly. He was
still a year under forty, but had achieved distinction in the war.
"There is no 'must' about it, but Sir Walter would appreciate the
effort on your part. He likes his guests to go. He is one of
those men who are a light to this generation - an ancient light,
if you like, but a shining one. He loves sound maxims. You may
say he runs his life on sound maxims. He lives charitably with
all men and it puzzles him, as it puzzles me, to understand the
growing doubt, the class prejudice - nay, class hatred the failure
of trust and the increasing tension and uneasiness between
employer and employed. He and I are agreed that the tribulations
of the present time can be traced to two disasters only - the lack
of goodwill - as shown in the proletariat, whose leaders teach
them to respect nobody, and the weakening hold of religion as also
revealed in the proletariat. Now, to combat these things and set
a good example is our duty - nay, our privilege. Don't you think
so?"

Such a lecture on an empty stomach depressed the colonel. He
looked uneasy and anxious.

"I'll come, of course, if he'd like it; but I'm afraid I shared my
men's dread of church parade, though our padre was a merciful
being on the whole and fairly sensible."

Overhead, Henry had tried the door of the Grey Room, and found it
locked. As he did so, the gong sounded for breakfast. Masters
always performed upon it. First he woke a preliminary whisper of
the great bronze disc, then deepened the note to a genial and
mellow roar, and finally calmed it down again until it faded
gently into silence. He spoke of the gong as a musical instrument,
and declared the art of sounding it was a gift that few men could
acquire.

Neither movement nor response rewarded the summons of Lennox, and
now in genuine alarm, he went below again, stopped Fred Caunter,
the footman, and asked him to call out Sir Walter.

Fred waited until his master had said a brief grace before meat;
then he stepped to his side and explained, that his nephew desired
to see him.

"Good patience! What's the matter?" asked the old man as he rose
and joined Henry in the hall.

Then his nephew spoke, and indicated his alarm. He stammered a
little, but strove to keep calm and state facts clearly.

"It's like this. I'm afraid you'll be rather savage, but I can't
talk now. Tom and I had a yarn when you'd gone to bed, and he was
awfully keen to spend the night in the Grey Room."

"I did not wish it."

"I know - we were wrong - but we were both death on it, and we
tossed up, and he won."

"Where is he?"

"Up there now, looking out of the window. I've called him and
made a row at the door, but he doesn't answer. He's locked himself
in, apparently."

"What have you done, Henry? We must get to him instantly. Tell
Caunter - no, I will. Don't breathe a syllable of this to anybody
unless necessity arises. Don't tell Mary."

Sir Walter beckoned the footman, bade him get some tools and ascend
quickly to the Grey Room. He then went up beside his nephew, while
Fred, bristling with excitement, hastened to the toolroom. He was
a handy man, had been at sea during the war, and now returned to
his old employment. His slow brain moved backwards, and he
remembered that this was a task he had already performed ten or
more years before. Then the ill-omened chamber had revealed a
dead woman. Who was in it now? Caunter guessed readily enough.

Lennox spoke to his uncle as they approached the locked door.

"It was only a lark, just to clear the room of its bad character
and have a laugh at your expense this morning. But I'm afraid
he's ill - fainted or something. He turned in about one o'clock.
I was rather bothered, and couldn't explain to myself why, but - "

"Don't chatter!" answered the other. "You have both done a very
wrong thing. and should have respected my wishes."

At the door he called loudly.

"Let us in at once, Tom, please! I am much annoyed! If this is a
jest, it has gone far enough - and too far! I blame you severely!"

But none replied. Absolute silence held the Grey Room.

Then came the footman with a frail of tools. The task could not
be performed in a moment, and Sir Walter, desirous above all things
to create no uneasiness at the breakfast-table, determined to go
down again. But he was too late, for his daughter had already
suspected something. She was not anxious but puzzled that her
husband tarried. She came up the stairs with a letter.

"I'm going to find Tom," she said. "It's not like him to be so
lazy. Here's a letter from the ship, and I'm awfully afraid he
may have to go back."

"Mary," said her father, "come here a moment."

He drew her under a great window which threw light into the
corridor.

"You must summon your nerve and pluck, my girl! I'm very much
afraid that something has gone amiss with Tom. I know nothing yet,
but last night, it seems, after we had gone to bed, he and Henry
determined that one of them should sleep in the Grey Room."

"Father! Was he there, and I so near him - sleeping in the very
next room?"

"He was there - and is there. He is not well. Henry saw him
looking out of the window five minutes ago, but he was, I fear,
unconscious."

"Let me go to him," she said.

"I will do so first. It will be wiser. Run down and ask Ernest
to join me. Do not be alarmed; I dare say it is nothing at all."

Her habit of obedience prompted her to do as he desired instantly,
but she descended like lightning, called Travers, and returned
with him.

"I will ask you to come in with me, Ernest," explained Sir Walter.
"My son-in-law slept in the Grey Room last night, and he does not
respond to our calls this morning. The door is locked and we are
breaking it open."

"But you expressly refused him permission to do so, Walter."

"I did - you heard me. Let sleeping dogs lie is a very good motto,
but young men will be young men. I hope, however, nothing serious -"

He stopped, for Caunter had forced the door and burst it inward
with a crash. During the moment's silence that followed they
heard the key spring into the room and strike the wainscot. The
place was flooded with sunshine, and seemed to welcome them with
genial light and attractive art. The furniture revealed its rich
grain and beautiful modelling; the cherubs carved on the great
chairs seemed to dance where the light flashed on their little,
rounded limbs. The silvery walls were bright, and the huge roses
that tumbled over them appeared to revive and display their
original color at the touch of the sun.

On a chair beside the bed stood an extinguished candle, Tom's
watch, and Henry's revolver. The sailor's dressing-gown was still
folded where he had placed it; his rug was at the foot of the bed.
He himself knelt in the recess at the open window upon the settee
that ran beneath. His position was natural; one arm held the
window-ledge and steadied him, and his back was turned to Sir
Walter and Travers, who first entered the room.

Henry held Mary back and implored her to wait a moment, but she
shook off his hand and followed her father.

Sir Walter it was who approached Tom and grasped his arm. In so
doing he disturbed the balance of the body, which fell back and
was caught by the two men. Its weight bore Ernest Travers to the
ground, but Henry was in time to save both the quick and the dead.
For Tom May had expired many hours before. His face was of an
ivory whiteness, his mouth closed. No sign of fear, but rather a
profound astonishment sat upon his features. His eyes were opened
and dim. In them, too, was frozen a sort of speechless amazement.
How long he had been dead they knew not, but none were in doubt of
the fact. His wife, too, perceived it. She went to where he now
lay, put her arms around his neck, and fainted.

Others were moving outside, and the murmur of voices reached the
Grey Room. It was one of those tragic situations when everybody
desires to be of service, and when well-meaning and small-minded
people are often hurt unintentionally and never forget it, putting
fancied affronts before the incidents that caused them.

The man lay dead and his wife unconscious upon his body.

Sir Walter rose to the occasion as best he might, issued orders,
and begged all who heard him to obey without question. He and his
friend Travers lifted Mary and carried her to her room. It was her
nursery of old. Here they put her on her bed, and sent Caunter for
Mrs. Travers and Mary's old servant, Jane Bond. She had recovered
consciousness before the women reached her. Then they returned to
the dead, and the master of Chadlands urged those standing on the
stairs and in the corridor to go back to their breakfast and their
duties.

"You can do no good," he said. "I will only ask Vane to help us."

Fayre-Michell spoke, while the colonel came forward.

"Forgive me, Sir Walter, but if it is anything psychical, I ask,
as a member-"

"For Heaven's sake do as I wish," returned the other. "My
son-in-law is dead. What more there is to know, you'll hear later.
I want Vane, because he is a powerful man and can help Henry and
my butler. We have to carry -"

He broke off.

"Dead!" gasped the visitor.

Then he hastened downstairs. Presently they lifted the sailor
among them, and got him to his own room. They could not dispose
him in a comely position - a fact that specially troubled Sir
Walter - and Masters doubted not that the doctor would be able to
do it.

Henry Lennox started as swiffly as possible for the house of the
physician, four miles off. He took a small motor-car, did the
journey along empty roads in twelve minutes, and was back again
with Dr. Mannering in less than half an hour.

The people, whose visit of pleasure was thus painfully brought to
a close, moved about whispering on the terrace. They had as yet
heard no details, and were considering whether it would be possible
to get off at once, or necessary to wait until the morrow.

Their natural desire was to depart, since they could not be of any
service to the stricken household; but no facilities existed on
Sunday. They walked about in little groups. One or two, desiring
to smoke but feeling that to do so would appear callous, descended
into the seclusion of the garden. Then Ernest Travers joined them.
He was important, but could only tell them that May had disobeyed
his father-in-law, slept in the Grey Room, and died there. He gave
them details and declared that in his opinion it would be unseemly
to attempt to leave until the following day.

"Sir Walter would feel it," he said. "He is bearing up well. He
will lunch with us. My wife tells me that Mary, Mrs. May, is very
sadly. That is natural-an awful blow. I find myself incapable of
grasping it. To think of so much boyish good spirits and such
vitality extinguished in this way."

"Can we do anything on earth for them?" asked Millicent
Fayre-Michell.

"Nothing - nothing. If I may advise, I think we had all better go
to church. By so doing we get out of the way for a time and please
dear Sir Walter. I shall certainly go."

They greeted the suggestion - indeed, clutched at it. Their
bewildered minds welcomed action. They were hushed and perturbed.
Death, crashing in upon them thus, left them more than uncomfortable.
Some, at the bottom of their souls, felt almost indignant that an
event so horrible should have disturbed the level tenor of their
lives. They shared the most profound sympathy for the sufferers
as well as for themselves. Some discovered that their own physical
bodies were upset, too, and felt surprised at the depth of their
emotions.

"It isn't as if it were natural," Felix Fayre-Michell persisted.
"Don't imagine that for a moment."

"It's too creepy - I can't believe it," declared his niece. She
was incapable of suffering much for anybody, and her excitement
had a flavour not wholly bitter. She saw herself describing these
events at other house parties. It would be unfair to say that she
was enjoying herself; still she knew nobody at Chadlands very well,
it was her first visit, and adventures are, after all, adventures.
Her uncle discussed the psychic significance of the tragedy, and
gave instances of similar events. One or two listened to him for
lack of anything better to do. There was a general sensation of
blankness. They were all thrown. Life had let them down. Under
the circumstances, to most of them it seemed an excellent idea to
go to church. Vane joined them presently. He was able to give
them many details and excite their interest. They crowded round
him, and he spoke nakedly. Death was nothing to him - he had seen
so much. They heard the motor return with Dr. Mannering.

"We're so out of it," said Mr. Miles Handford, a stout man from
Yorkshire - a wealthy landowner and sportsman.

He was unaccustomed to be out of anything in his environment, and
he showed actual irritation.

"Thank Heaven we are, I should think!" answered another; and the
first speaker frowned at him.

Ernest Travers joined them presently. He had put on a black tie
and wore black gloves and a silk hat.

"If you accompany me," he said, "I can show you the short way by a
field path. It cuts off half a mile. I have told Sir Walter we
all go to church, and he asked me if we would like the motors; but
I felt, the day being fine, you would agree with me that we might
walk. He is terribly crushed, but taking it like the man he is."

Miles Handford and Fayre-Michell followed the church party in the
rear, and relieved their minds by criticizing Mr. Travers.

"Officious ass!" said the stout man. "A typical touch that black
tie! A decent-minded person would have felt this appalling tragedy
far too much to think of such a trifle. I hope I shall never see
the brute again."

"It seems too grotesque marching to church like a lot of children,
because he tells us to do so," murmured Fayre-Michell.

"I don't want to go. I only want distraction. In fact, I don't
think I shall go," added Mr. Handford. But a woman urged him to
do so.

"Sir Walter would like it," she said.

"It's all very sad and very exasperating indeed," declared the
Yorkshireman; "and it shows, if that wanted showing, that there's
far, far less consideration among young men for their elders than
there used to be in my young days. If my father-in-law had told me
not to do a thing, the very wish to do it would have disappeared
at once."

"Sir Walter was as clear as need be," added Felix. "We all heard
him. Then the young fool - Heaven forgive him - behind everybody's
back goes and plays with fire in this insane way."

"The selfishness! Just look at the inconvenience - the upset - the
suffering to his relations and the worry for all of us. All our
plans must be altered - everything upset, life for the moment
turned upside down - a woman's heart broken very likely - and all
for a piece of disobedient folly. Such things make one out of tune
with Providence. They oughtn't to happen. They don't happen in
Yorkshire. Devonshire appears to be a slacker's county. It's the
air, I shouldn't wonder."

"Education, and law and order, and the discipline inculcated in the
Navy ought to have prevented this." continued Fayre-Michell. "Who,
ver heard of a sailor disobeying-except Nelson?"

"He's paid, poor fellow," said his niece, who walked beside him.

"We have all paid," declared the north countryman. "We have all
paid the price; and the price has been a great deal of suffering
and discomfort and stress of mind that we ought not have been
called upon to endure. One resents such things in a stable world."

"Well, I'm not going to church, anyway. I must smoke for my nerves.
I'm a psychic myself, and I react to a thing of this sort," replied
Fayre-Michell.

>From a distant stile between two fields Mr. Travers, some hundred
yards ahead, was waving directions and pointing to the left.

"Go to Jericho!" snapped Mr. Handford, but not loud enough for
Ernest Travers to hear him.

A little ring of bells throbbed thin music. It rose and fell on
the easterly breeze and a squat grey tower, over which floated a
white ensign on a flagstaff, appeared upon a little knoll of trees
in the midst of the village of Chadlands.

Presently the bells stopped, and the flag was brought down to
half-mast. Mr. Travers had reached the church.

"A maddening sort of man," said Miles Handford, who marked these
phenomena. "Be sure Sir Walter never told him to do anything of
that sort. He has taken it upon himself - a theatrical mind. If
I were the vicar -"

Elsewhere Dr. Mannering heard what Henry Lennox could tell him as
they returned to the manor house together. He displayed very deep
concern combined with professional interest. He recalled the story
that Sir Walter had related on the previous night.

"Not a shadow of evidence - a perfectly healthy little woman; and
it will be the same here as sure as I'm alive," he said. "To think
- we shot side by side yesterday, and I remarked his fine physique
and wonderful high spirits - a big, tough fellow. How's poor Mary?"

"She is pretty bad, but keeping her nerve, as she would be sure to
do," declared the other.

Sir Walter was with his daughter when Mannering arrived. The
doctor had been a crony of the elder for many years. He was about
the average of a country physician - a hard-bitten, practical man
who loved his profession, loved sport, and professed conservative
principles. Experience stood in place of high qualifications, but
he kept in touch with medical progress, to the extent of reading
about it and availing himself of improved methods and preparations
when opportunity offered. He examined the dead man very carefully,
indicated how his posture might be rendered more normal, and
satisfied himself that human power was incapable of restoring the
vanished life. He could discover no visible indication of violence
and no apparent excuse for Tom May's sudden end. He listened with
attention to the little that Henry Lennox could tell him, and then
went to see Mary May and her father.

The young wife had grown more collected, but she was dazed rather
than reconciled to her fate; her