"What I mean," and Hernshaw stepped to the edge of the porch and threw
the butt of his cigar into the darkness, where it described a glimmering
arc, "is that if anything came to me that would help shore up my
professed faith in what most of us want to believe in, I would take the
common-law view of it. I would believe it was innocent till it proved
itself guilty. I wouldn't try to make it out a fraud myself."

"I'm afraid that's what I've really done," said Hewson. "But before
people I've put up a bluff of despising it." "Oh, yes, I understand
that," said Hernshaw. "A man thinks that if he can have an experience
like that he must be something out of the common, and if he can despise
it--"

"You've hit my case exactly," said Hewson, and the two men laughed.




XV.


After his marriage, which took place without needless delay, Hewson
returned with his wife to spend their honey-moon at St. Johnswort. The
honey-moon prolonged itself during an entire year, and in this time they
contrived so far to live down its reputation of being a haunted house
that they were able to conduct their _menage_ on the ordinary terms. They
themselves never wished to lose the sense of something supernatural in
the place, and were never quite able to accept the actual conditions as
final. That is to say, Rosalie was not, for she had taken Hewson's
apparition under her peculiar care, and defended it against even his