without her coming. Undoubtedly it was she who supplied the
necessary psychic conditions. There was that about her--a sort of
atmosphere. That quaint archaic French of hers--King Arthur and the
round table and Merlin; it seemed to recreate it all. An artful
minx, that is the only explanation. But while she was looking at
you, out of that curious aloofness of hers--"

The Doctor left the sentence uncompleted.

"As for old Littlecherry," the Doctor began again quite suddenly,
"that's his speciality--folklore, occultism, all that flummery. If
you knocked at his door with the original Sleeping Beauty on your
arm he'd only fuss round her with cushions and hope that she'd had a
good night. Found a seed once--chipped it out of an old fossil, and
grew it in a pot in his study. About the most dilapidated weed you
ever saw. Talked about it as if he had re-discovered the Elixir of
Life. Even if he didn't say anything in actually so many words,
there was the way he went about. That of itself was enough to have
started the whole thing, to say nothing of that loony old Irish
housekeeper of his, with her head stuffed full of elves and banshees
and the Lord knows what."

Again the Doctor lapsed into silence. One by one the lights of the
village peeped upward out of the depths. A long, low line of light,
creeping like some luminous dragon across the horizon, showed the
track of the Great Western express moving stealthily towards
Swindon.

"It was altogether out of the common," continued the Doctor, "quite
out of the common, the whole thing. But if you are going to accept