Suddenly, like the stroke of a black wing, there passed through Archie an impulse of sheer abhorrence. All that Martin said sounded divinely comforting and uplifting, but did there not lurk in it the whole gospel of Satanism? And, as that thought crossed his mind, he saw an expression of the tenderest reproach dim for a moment the brightness of his brother's eyes, and the mouth drooped. "But you are tired now," said he, "and your trust in me is a little weakened. Sleep well: it is dawn already." The apparition faded, or rather it appeared to be withdrawn again into himself, and, emerging from the light trance, Archie was conscious only of an overpowering but delicious fatigue, the fatigue of utter satisfaction. He had had a glorious thirty-six hours, and, as Martin said, he was tired. And Martin approved. He slept the deep, recuperative sleep of youth for four or five hours, and awoke hungry and eager, and clear-eyed. He left town immediately after breakfast, motored himself down home with William holding on to the side of the car as he slowed round corners and came straight out to his beloved bathing-place. It was bliss to be alive. * * * * * He had not seen Jessie during his short raid on London, for really there had not been a moment to spare; besides, Jessie was coming down next day for the week-end. But she knew he had been in town, for Helena said she had seen him, and, with her usual acuteness, had told her sister that Archie was deliciously his old self again, and that they were the greatest friends. That, to Jessie's very sensible judgment and to the intuition her love gave her, was the most inexplicable of developments. Only a week ago there was no reproach bitter enough for Archie's opinion on Helena's conduct to him, no angry taunt of misery sufficient for her vilification. And then, in a moment, the whole of that bitterness had been dried up, the Marah had been sweetened. More than that, the normal joy of life had returned in full flood to him, and the cause of all this was, in his account, the fact that the spirit of Martin had shown him the true light. That Archie possessed that mysterious, and, in her view, dangerous gift of mediumistic perception she did not doubt, for there was no questioning those weird manifestations of occult power which she knew had occurred in his childhood, and she felt now that she ought only to stand in an awed wonder and thankfulness that this supernormal perception of his had, in a moment, worked in him what could be called no less than a miracle. But, though she ought to feel that, she knew that she felt nothing of the kind, and, as she travelled down next day to Lacebury, she set herself to analyse the causes of her mistrust.