allowed to press towards it. They were guarding and hiding
something; perhaps death in some too shocking form, perhaps
something like the Merstham matter, so mixed up with human mystery
and wickedness that the land has to give it a sort of sanctity;
perhaps something worse than either. I went out gladly enough into
the streets and saw the lamps shining on the laughing faces. Nor
have I ever known from that day to this into what strange story I
wandered or what frightful thing was my companion in the dark.


IV

THE PERFECT GAME

We have all met the man who says that some odd things have
happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they
were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this.
I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason,
not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts;
I only see their inherent probability. But it is entirely
a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions;
my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy.
But upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often
leave a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance
that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted
in nothing less than my playing a game, and playing it quite well
for some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather
would have astonished me less.

On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my