"Shock?" "Yes. Look at my head! look at my hair!" She bent forward; he hastened to her side and glanced at the rich locks towards which she pointed. As he did so, he recoiled in sudden awe and confusion. "What does it mean?" he asked. There were gray spots in those dusky tresses, spots which had never been there before. "The fingers of a ghost have touched me," she whispered. "Wherever they fell, a mark has been left, and those marks sear my brain." And then Frank noticed, with inward horror, that the spots were regular and ran in a distinct circle about her head. "Hermione," he cried, "has your imagination carried you so far? Ghost? Do you believe in ghosts?" "I believe in anything _now_," she murmured. Frightened by her shudders and dazed by words he found it impossible to treat lightly with those mysterious marks before him, Frank turned for relief to Emma, who had risen also and stood a few steps behind them, with her face bent downward though the Doctor pressed close at her side. "Do you understand her?" said Frank. With an effort Emma moved forward. "It has frightened _me_," she whispered. "What has? Let us hear all about it," demanded the Doctor, speaking for the first time. Hermione gave him a wistful glance. "We are wretched girls," said she. "If you expected to relieve us from the curse, it is impossible; my father will not have it so." "Your father!" quoth both of the young men, appalled not at the superstition thus evinced, but at the effect they saw it was likely to have upon her mind. "Did you think you saw _him_?" added Frank. "When? Where?" "In the laboratory--last night. I did not see him but I felt him; felt him strike my head with his fingers and drag me back. It was worse than death! I shall never get over it." "Tell me the particulars; explain the whole matter to me. Imagination plays us ghastly tricks sometimes. Were you alone? Was it late?" "Why didn't I come here this morning?" cried Edgar.