‘Good Lord, my nerves are in a rotten state,’ muttered Macfarlane, as he awoke the following morning. He reviewed the events of the afternoon before dispassionately. The motor, the short-cut to the inn and the sudden mist that had made him lose his way with the knowledge that a dangerous bog was no distance off. Then the chimney pot that had fallen off the inn, and the smell of burning in the night which he had traced to a cinder on his hearthrug. Nothing in it at all! Nothing at all—but for her words, and that deep unacknowledged certainty in his heart that she knew . . .

He flung off his bedclothes with sudden energy. He must go up and see her first thing. That would break the spell. That is, if he got there safely . . . Lord, what a fool he was!

He could eat little breakfast. Ten o’clock saw him starting up the road. At ten-thirty his hand was on the bell. Then, and not till then, he permitted himself to draw a long breath of relief.

‘Is Mrs Haworth in?’

It was the same elderly woman who had opened the door before. But her face was different—ravaged with grief.

‘Oh! sir, oh! sir, you haven’t heard then?’

‘Heard what?’

‘Miss Alistair, the pretty lamb. It was her tonic. She took it every night. The poor captain is beside himself, he’s nearly mad. He took the wrong bottle off the shelf in the dark . . . They sent for the doctor, but he was too late—’

And swiftly there recurred to Macfarlane the words: ‘I’ve always known there was something dreadful hanging over him. I ought to be able to prevent it happening—if one ever can—’ Ah! but one couldn’t cheat Fate . . . Strange fatality of vision that had destroyed where it sought to save . . .

The old servant went on: ‘My pretty lamb! So sweet and gentle she was, and so sorry for anything in trouble. Couldn’t bear anyone to be hurt.’ She hesitated, then added: ‘Would you like to go up and see her, sir? I think, from what she said, that you must have known her long ago. A very long time ago, she said . . .’

Macfarlane followed the old woman up the stairs, into the room over the drawing-room where he had heard the voice singing the day before. There was stained glass at the top of the windows. It threw a red light on the head of the bed . . . A gipsy with a red handkerchief over her head . . . Nonsense, his nerves were playing tricks again. He took a long last look at Alistair Haworth.

‘There’s a lady to see you, sir.’

‘Eh?’ Macfarlane looked at the landlady abstractedly. ‘Oh! I beg your pardon, Mrs Rowse, I’ve been seeing ghosts.’

‘Not really, sir? There’s queer things to be seen on the moor after nightfall, I know. There’s the white lady, and the Devil’s blacksmith, and the sailor and the gipsy—’