extraordinary circumstances and meanwhile I should continue my
investigations; but until the marriage was accomplished, my chief thought
was to keep Miss Hisgins near to me.

"After lunch I thought I would take a few experimental photographs of
Miss Hisgins and her _surroundings_. Sometimes the camera sees things
that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight.

"With this intention and partly to make an excuse to keep her in my
company as much as possible, I asked Miss Hisgins to join me in my
experiments. She seemed glad to do this and I spent several hours with
her, wandering all over the house, from room to room and whenever the
impulse came I took a flashlight of her and the room or corridor in which
we chanced to be at the moment.

"After we had gone right through the house in this fashion, I asked her
whether she felt sufficiently brave to repeat the experiments in the
cellars. She said yes, and so I rooted out Captain Hisgins and Parsket,
for I was not going to take her even into what you might call artificial
darkness without help and companionship at hand.

"When we were ready we went down into the wine cellar, Captain Hisgins
carrying a shotgun and Parsket a specially prepared background and a
lantern. I got the girl to stand in the middle of the cellar whilst
Parsket and the Captain held out the background behind her. Then I fired
off the flashlight, and we went into the next cellar where we repeated
the experiment.

"Then in the third cellar, a tremendous, pitch-dark place, something
extraordinary and horrible manifested itself. I had stationed Miss