seemed cheerful and confident.

"Humour restored?" laughed the doctor, as soon as they were comfortably
settled in the room overlooking the Park.

"I've had no trouble since I left that dreadful place," returned Pender
gratefully; "and thanks to you--"

The doctor stopped him with a gesture.

"Never mind that," he said, "we'll discuss your new plans afterwards,
and my scheme for relieving you of the house and helping you settle
elsewhere. Of course it must be pulled down, for it's not fit for any
sensitive person to live in, and any other tenant might be afflicted in
the same way you were. Although, personally, I think the evil has
exhausted itself by now."

He told the astonished author something of his experiences in it with
the animals.

"I don't pretend to understand," Pender said, when the account was
finished, "but I and my wife are intensely relieved to be free of it
all. Only I must say I should like to know something of the former
history of the house. When we took it six months ago I heard no word
against it."

Dr. Silence drew a typewritten paper from his pocket.

"I can satisfy your curiosity to some extent," he said, running his eye
over the sheets, and then replacing them in his coat; "for by my