I bolted into the garden, and Panhandle, with an irritating smile at the corners of his mouth, followed. As we walked among the lawns and shrubberies we both fell silent: he, for a reason unknown to me; I, because something in his plan of gardening had absorbed my attention and filled me with wonder. Presently I said, "Panhandle, I cannot refrain from asking you a question. I observe that in your style of gardening you have embodied an idea which I have long cherished but never dared to carry out lest people should think me morbid. You have planted cypress at the back of your roses; and the plan is so unusual and yet so entirely in accord with my own mind on the subject that I suspect telepathy between you and me." He looked at me closely for a few seconds, and then said: "It may be. I too have often suspected that throughout the whole of my gardening operations I was under the control of an intelligence other than my own. But I would never have guessed that it was yours. Anyhow, this particular idea, no matter what its origin may be, is admirable. No other background will compare with the cypress for bringing out the colour of the roses. See how gorgeous they look at this moment." "And the cypress too," I said, "are, thanks to the contrast, full of majesty. But, though you and I understand one another so completely at this point, there is another at which I confess you bewilder me." And I indicated the sky-sign, which at that moment had turned its legend--"No Psychologists"--full towards us. "You will not be surprised to learn," he answered, "that this house, like other haunted houses, has been the scene of a tragedy. The tragedy is the explanation of the sign, and it is essential you should know the story, as the ghosts are certain to refer to it. You remember that I once had a religion?" "I trust you have one still," I said. "I prefer to be silent on that point," he answered. "Whatever religion I may have at the present moment I am resolved to protect from the disasters which befell the religion I had long ago. A certain psychologist got wind of it, and I, in my innocence, granted his request to submit my religious consciousness to a scientific investigation. I was highly flattered by the result. The man, having completed his investigation, came to the conclusion that my religion was destined to be _the religion of the future_, and went up and down the country announcing his prophecy. But the strange thing was that as soon as we all knew that this was going to be the religion of the future it ceased to be the religion of the present. What followed? Why, in a couple of years I and my followers had no religion at all. Incidentally our minds had become a mass of self-complacency and conceit, and the public were coming to regard us as a set of intolerable wind-bags. Such was the tragedy, and ever since its occurrence I have led a haunted life." "There may be compensations in that," I suggested.