second hand hundreds could still more confidently affirm its truth. But
if he admitted the truth of the fact and denied merely that it had
happened at St. Johnswort, he would have Miss Hernshaw to deal with and
what could he hope from truth so relentless as hers? She was of a moral
make so awful that if he ventured to deny it without appeal for her
support (which was impossible), she was quite capable of denying his
denial.

He did the only thing he could. He wrote to St. John declaring that the
newspaper story, though utterly false in its pretensions to be an
interview with him, was true in its essentials. The thing _had_ really
happened, he _had_ seen an apparition, and he had seen it at St.
Johnswort that morning when St. John supposed his house to have been
invaded by burglars. He vainly turned over a thousand deprecatory
expressions in his mind, with which to soften the blow but he let his
letter go without including one.




X.


A week of silence passed, and then one night St. John himself appeared at
Hewson's apartment. Hewson almost knew that it was his ring at the door,
and in the tremulous note of his voice asking the man if he were at home,
he recognized the great blubbery fellow's most plaintive mood.

"Well, Hewson," he whimpered, without staying for any form of greeting
when they stood face to face, "this has been a terrible business for me.