to respect him. I like to hear a woman speak well of her husband. It
is a departure which, in my opinion, should be more encouraged than it
is. I assured her Camelford was not the culprit; and on the
understanding that I might come to see her--not too often--on her
Thursdays, I agreed with her that the best thing I could do would be
to dismiss the subject from my mind and occupy myself instead with
questions that concerned myself.

I had never talked much with Camelford before that time, though I had
often seen him at the Club. He is a strange man, of whom many stories
are told. He writes journalism for a living, and poetry, which he
publishes at his own expense, apparently for recreation. It occurred
to me that his theory would at all events be interesting; but at first
he would not talk at all, pretending to ignore the whole affair, as
idle nonsense. I had almost despaired of drawing him out, when one
evening, of his own accord, he asked me if I thought Mrs. Armitage,
with whom he knew I was on terms of friendship, still attached
importance to the thing. On my expressing the opinion that Mrs.
Armitage was the most troubled of the group, he was irritated; and
urged me to leave the rest of them alone and devote whatever sense I
might possess to persuading her in particular that the entire thing
was and could be nothing but pure myth. He confessed frankly that to
him it was still a mystery. He could easily regard it as chimera, but
for one slight incident. He would not for a long while say what that
was, but there is such a thing as perseverance, and in the end I
dragged it out of him. This is what he told me.

"We happened by chance to find ourselves alone in the conservatory,
that night of the ball--we six. Most of the crowd had already left.
The last 'extra' was being played: the music came to us faintly.