good."

But it happened, oddly enough, that the Alderlings were as kinless as
they were childless, and if he had gone to Europe he would have taken her
with him, and prolonged their seclusion by the isolation in which people
necessarily live in a foreign country. I found I was the only
acquaintance who had visited them during the years of their retirement on
the coast, where they had stayed, partly through his inertia, and partly
from his superstition that he could paint better away from the ordinary
associations and incentives; and they ceased, before I left, to get the
good they might of my visit because they made me a part of their
intimacy, instead of making themselves part of my strangeness.

After a day or two, their queer experiences began to resume themselves,
unabashed by my presence. These were mostly such as they had already more
than hinted to me: the thought-transferences, and the unconscious
hypnotic suggestions which they made to each other. There was more
novelty in the last than the first. If I could trust them, and they did
not seem to wish to exploit their mysteries for the effect on me, they
were with each other because one or the other had willed it. She would
say, if we were sitting together without him, "I think Rupert wants me;
I'll be back in a moment," and he, if she were not by, for some time,
would get up with, "Excuse me, I must go to Marion; she's calling me."

I had to take a great deal of this on faith; in fact, none of it was
susceptible of proof; but I have not been able since to experience all
the skepticism which usually replaces the impression left by sympathy
with such supposed occurrences. The thing was not quite what we call
uncanny; the people were so honest, both of them, that the morbid
character of like situations was wanting. The events, if they could be