in the rain for hours. He wore the bright yellow collar I had bought him
shortly before his disappearance, so that had there been any doubt as to
his identity that would have removed it instantly. On my calling to him,
he turned quickly round and, with a slight gesture of the head as if
bidding me to follow, he glided forward. My natural impulse was to run
after him, pick him up and smother him with kisses; but try as hard as I
could, I could not diminish the distance between us, although he never
appeared to alter his pace. I was quite out of breath by the time we
reached H---- Street, where, to my surprise, he stopped at No. 90 and,
turning round again, gazed at me in the most beseeching manner. I can't
describe that look; suffice it to say that no human eyes could have been
more expressive, but of what beyond the most profound love and sorrow I
cannot, I dare not, attempt to state. I have pondered upon it through
the whole of a mid-summer night, but not even the severest of my mental
efforts have enabled me to solve it to my satisfaction. Could I but do
that, I feel I should have fathomed the greatest of all mysteries--the
mystery of life and death.

"I do not know for how long we stood there looking at one another, it
may have been minutes or hours, or, again, but a few paltry seconds. He
took the initiative from me, for, as I leaped forward to raise him in my
arms, he glided through the stone steps into the area.

"Convinced now that what I beheld was Robert's apparition, I determined
to see the strange affair through to the bitter end, and entering the
gate, I also went down into the area. The phantom had come to an abrupt
halt by the side of a low wooden box, and as I foolishly made an
abortive attempt to reach it with my hand, it vanished instantaneously.
I searched the area thoroughly, and was assured that there was no
outlet, save by the steps I had just descended, and no hole, nor nook,