observed his exit no more than I had observed his entrance.

"Of course, I need not tell you that this was what you will call an
hallucination and I call an apparition. That room had only two
doors, of which one was locked; the other led into a bedroom, from
which there was no exit. My feeling on realizing this is not an
important part of the incident.

"Doubtless this seems to you a very commonplace 'ghost story'--one
constructed on the regular lines laid down by the old masters of the
art. If that were so I should not have related it, even if it were
true. The man was not dead; I met him to-day in Union street. He
passed me in a crowd."

Hawver had finished his story and both men were silent. Dr. Frayley
absently drummed on the table with his fingers.

"Did he say anything to-day?" he asked--"anything from which you
inferred that he was not dead?"

Hawver stared and did not reply.

"Perhaps," continued Frayley, "he made a sign, a gesture--lifted a
finger, as in warning. It's a trick he had--a habit when saying
something serious--announcing the result of a diagnosis, for
example."

"Yes, he did--just as his apparition had done. But, good God! did
you ever know him?"