“No—I’ve never had any news of him.”

“Not the least little message?”

“Not the least little message.”

“Or a rumour or report of any kind?”

“Or a rumour or report of any kind.”

Miss Fosdick’s interest seemed to be revived by the strangeness of the case. “It’s rather creepy, isn’t it? What could have happened? You don’t suppose he could have been waylaid and murdered?” she asked with brightening eyes.

Bernald shook his head serenely. “No. I’m sure he’s safe—quite safe.”

“But if you’re sure, you must know something.”

“No. I know nothing,” he repeated.

She scanned him incredulously. “But what’s your theory—for you must have a theory? What in the world can have become of him?”

Bernald returned her look and hesitated. “Do you happen to remember the last thing he said to you—the very last, on the door-step, when he left you?”

“The last thing?” She poised her fork above the peach on her plate. “I don’t think he said anything. Oh, yes—when I reminded him that he’d solemnly promised to come back with me and have a little talk he said he couldn’t because he was going home.”

“Well, then, I suppose,” said Bernald, “he went home.”

She glanced at him as if suspecting a trap. “Dear me, how flat! I always inclined to a mysterious murder. But of course you know more of him than you say.”

She began to cut her peach, but paused above a lifted bit to ask, with a renewal of animation in her expressive eyes: “By the way, had you heard that Howland Wade has been gradually getting farther and farther away from Pellerinism? It seems he’s begun to feel that there’s a Positivist element in it which is narrowing to any one who has gone at all deeply into the Wisdom of the East. He was intensely interesting about it the other day, and of course I do see what he feels. ... Oh, it’s too long to tell you now; but if you could manage to come in to tea some afternoon soon—any day but Wednesday—I should so like to explain—”

THE EYES

THE EYES

I

WE had been put in the mood for ghosts, that evening, after an excellent dinner at our old friend Culwin’s, by a tale of Fred Murchard’s—the narrative of a strange personal visitation.