"A ghost at Chadlands, Walter?" asked Ernest Travers. "You never
told me."

"Ghosts are all humbug," declared another speaker--a youthful
"colonel" of the war.

"I deprecate that attitude, Vane. It may certainly be that our
ghost is a humbug, or, rather, that we have no such thing as a
ghost at all. And that is my own impression. But an idle
generality is always futile--indeed, any generality usually is.
You have, at least, no right to say, 'Ghosts are all humbug.'
Because you cannot prove they are. The weight of evidence is very
much on the other side."

"Sorry," said Colonel Vane, a man without pride. "I didn't know
you believed in 'em, Sir Walter."

"Most emphatically I believe in them."

"So do I," declared Ernest Travers. "Nay, so does my wife--for
the best possible reason. A friend of hers actually saw one."

Mr. Fayre-Michell spoke.

"Spiritualism and spirits are two quite different things," he said.
"One may discredit the whole business of spiritualism and yet
firmly believe in spirits."

He was a narrow-headed, clean-shaven man with grey hair and
moustache. He had a small body on very long legs, and though a