“You ought to have called me earlier. I really prized that chandelier immensely. And this furniture wasn’t so bad!”

His tone changed abruptly. He pointed to the sheriff’s deputies one after the other with his stick. There was, I remembered, always something insinuating, disagreeable and final about my grandfather’s staff.

“Clear out!” he commanded. “Bates, see these fellows through the wall. Mr. Sheriff, if I were you I’d be very careful, indeed, what I said of this affair. I’m a dead man come to life again, and I know a great deal that I didn’t know before I died. Nothing, gentlemen, fits a man for life like a temporary absence from this cheerful and pleasant world. I recommend you to try it.”

He walked about the room with the quick eager step that was peculiarly his own, while Stoddard, Larry and I stared at him. Bates was helping the dazed sheriff to his feet. Morgan and the rest of the foe were crawling and staggering away, muttering, as though imploring the air of heaven against an evil spirit.

Pickering sat silent, not sure whether he saw a ghost or real flesh and blood, and Larry kept close to him, cutting off his retreat. I think we all experienced that bewildered feeling of children who are caught in mischief by a sudden parental visitation. My grandfather went about peering at the books, with a tranquil air that was disquieting.

He paused suddenly before the design for the memorial tablet, which I had made early in my stay at Glenarm House. I had sketched the lettering with some care, and pinned it against a shelf for my more leisurely study of its phrases. The old gentlemen pulled out his glasses and stood with, his hands behind his back, reading. When he finished he walked to where I stood.

“Jack!” he said, “Jack, my boy!” His voice shook and his hands trembled as he laid them on my shoulders. “Marian,”—he turned, seeking her, but the girl had vanished. “Just as well,” he said. “This room is hardly an edifying sight for a woman.” I heard, for an instant, a light hurried step in the wall.

Pickering, too, heard that faint, fugitive sound, and our eyes met at the instant it ceased. The thought of her tore my heart, and I felt that Pickering saw and knew and was glad.

“They have all gone, sir,” reported Bates, returning to the room.