what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting,
half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of
such a brain put into action and invested with a semi-substance. That
this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement,
that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force
must have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have
sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the
dog,--had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing
resistance in my will."

"It killed your dog,--that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that no
animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat. Bats and
mice are never found in it."

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their
existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a
resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend my
theory?"

"Yes, though imperfectly,--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the
word), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts
and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries. Still, to my unfortunate
house, the evil is the same. What on earth can I do with the house?"

"I will tell you what I would do. I am convinced from my own internal
feelings that the small, unfurnished room at right angles to the door
of the bed-room which I occupied, forms a starting-point or receptacle
for the influences which haunt the house; and I strongly advise you to
have the walls opened, the floor removed,--nay, the whole room pulled
down. I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built