"I suggest--I do not know--that the _seance_ was held under the auspices of Mr. Antony Ferrara, ostensibly for amusement." Another affirmative nod answered him. "You proved to be mediumistic?" It was admitted. "And now, Lady Lashmore"--Dr. Cairn's face was very stern--"I will trouble you no further." He prepared to depart; when-- "Dr. Cairn!" whispered Lady Lashmore, tremulously, "some dreadful thing, something that I cannot comprehend but that I fear and loathe with all my soul, has come to me. Oh--for pity's sake, give me a word of hope! Save for you, I am alone with a horror I cannot name. Tell me--" At the door, he turned. "Be brave," he said--and went out. Lady Lashmore sat still as one who had looked upon Gorgon, her beautiful eyes yet widely opened and her face pale as death; for he had not even told her to hope. * * * * * Robert Cairn was sitting smoking in the library, a bunch of notes before him, when Dr. Cairn returned to Half-Moon Street. His face, habitually fresh coloured, was so pale that his son leapt up in alarm. But Dr. Cairn waved him away with a characteristic gesture of the hand. "Sit down, Rob," he said, quietly; "I shall be all right in a moment. But I have just left a woman--a young woman and a beautiful woman--whom a fiend of hell has condemned to that which my mind refuses to contemplate." Robert Cairn sat down again, watching his father. "Make out a report of the following facts," continued the latter, beginning to pace up and down the room. He recounted all that he had learnt of the history of the house of Dhoon and all that he had learnt of recent happenings from Lord and Lady Lashmore. His son wrote rapidly. "And now," said the doctor, "for our conclusions. Mirza, the Polish Jewess, who became Lady Lashmore in 1615, practised sorcery in life and became, after death, a ghoul--one who sustained an unholy existence by unholy means--a vampire." "But, sir! Surely that is but a horrible superstition of the Middle Ages!" "Rob, I could take you to a castle not ten miles from Cracow in Poland where there are--certain relics, which would for ever settle your doubts respecting the existence of vampires. Let us proceed. The son of Mirza, Paul Dhoon, inherited the dreadful proclivities of his mother, but his shadowy existence was cut short in the traditional, and effective, manner. Him we may neglect. "It is Mirza, the sorceress, who must engage our attention. She was decapitated by her husband. This punishment prevented her, in the unhallowed life which, for such as she, begins after ordinary decease, from practising the horrible rites of a vampire. Her headless body could not serve her as a vehicle for nocturnal wanderings, but the evil spirit of the woman might hope to gain control of some body more suitable.