What an extraordinary difference a few moments can make in one's outlook on life! Blanche Farrow was uncomfortably aware that she would never forget what had happened to her on New Year's Eve. That strange and fearful experience had obliterated some of her clearest mental landmarks. She wished to think, she tried very hard to think, that in some mysterious way the vision she had seen with such terrible distinctness had been a projection from Bubbles' brain--Bubbles' uncanny gift working, perchance, on Lionel Varick's mind and memory. She could not doubt that the two wraiths she had seen so clearly purported to be a survival of the human personalities of the two women who each had borne Varick's name, and had been, for a while, so closely linked with him.... Yet long ago, when quite a young woman, she had come to the deliberate conclusion that there was no such survival of human personality. Taking up Mark Gifford's mysterious telegram, and one or two unimportant letters she had just received, she went downstairs, to see, as she came into the dining-room, that only Varick was already down. He looked up, and she was shocked to see how ill and strained he looked. He had taken poor little Bubbles' accident terribly to heart; Blanche knew he had a feeling--which was rather absurd, after all,--that he in some way could have prevented it. But as he saw her come in his face lightened, and she felt touched. Poor Lionel! He was certainly very, very fond of her. "I do hope Helen Brabazon will stay on with you and Bubbles," he said eagerly. "I think I've nearly persuaded Miss Burnaby to let her do so. Do say a word to her, Blanche?" "I will, if you like. But in that case, hadn't we better ask Sir Lyon to stay on, too?" "Dilsford!" he exclaimed. "Why on earth should we think of doing that?" Blanche smiled. "Where are your eyes?" she asked. "Sir Lyon's head over heels in love with Helen Brabazon; and I've been wondering these last few days whether that quiet, demure girl is quite as unconscious of his state as she pretends to be!" And then, as she began pouring out a cup of tea for the man who was now looking at her with a dismayed, surprised expression on his face, she went on composedly: "It would be rather amusing if two engagements were to come out of your house-party, Lionel--wouldn't it?" But he answered at once, in a harsh, decided tone, "I think you're quite mistaken, Blanche. Why, they've hardly exchanged two words together."