moved to the opposite side of the room. Those in attendance had
thought the request a vagary of her delirium, but had complied. And
there the poor passing soul had exerted its failing will to restore a
broken connection--a golden thread of sentiment between its innocence
and a monstrous baseness owning a blind, brutal allegiance to the Law
of Self.

"What reparation could I make? Are there masses that can be said for
the repose of souls that are abroad such nights as this--spirits
'blown about by the viewless winds'--coming in the storm and darkness
with signs and portents, hints of memory and presages of doom?

"This is the third visitation. On the first occasion I was too
skeptical to do more than verify by natural methods the character of
the incident; on the second, I responded to the signal after it had
been several times repeated, but without result. To-night's
recurrence completes the 'fatal triad' expounded by Parapelius
Necromantius. There is no more to tell."

When Dampier had finished his story I could think of nothing relevant
that I cared to say, and to question him would have been a hideous
impertinence. I rose and bade him good night in a way to convey to
him a sense of my sympathy, which he silently acknowledged by a
pressure of the hand. That night, alone with his sorrow and remorse,
he passed into the Unknown.



A PSYCHOLOGICAL SHIPWRECK