I saw she was very frightened, so I called up the servants, and had our
beds removed to a room on the other side of the house, and then she told
me what she had seen. She said: "I was sitting reading as you saw me,
when looking round, I saw the figure of an Englishman standing close by
my bedside, a fine-looking man with a large fair moustache and dressed
in a grey suit. I was so surprised that I could not speak, and we
remained looking at each other for about a minute. Then he bent over me
and whispered: 'Don't be afraid,' and with that there was the sound of a
shot, and everything was in darkness."

"My dear girl, you must have fallen asleep over your book and been
dreaming," I said.

"No, I was wide awake," she insisted; "you were asleep, but I was awake
all the time. But you heard the shot, did you not?"

"Yes," I replied, "that is what woke me--some one must have fired a shot
outside."

"But why should any one be shooting in our garden at nearly midnight?"
my wife objected.

It certain seemed strange, but it was the only explanation that
suggested itself; so we had to agree to differ, she being convinced that
she had seen a ghost, and that the shot had been inside the room, and I
being equally convinced that she had been dreaming, and that the shot
had been fired outside the house.

The next morning the owner of the bungalow, an old widow lady, Mrs. La
Chaire, called to make kindly enquiries as to whether she could be of