The young man came and sat down in the next stall. Bubbles was leaning back more comfortably now, her red cap almost off her head. There was a great look of restfulness on her pale, sensitive face. She put out her hand and felt for his; after a moment of hesitation he slid down and knelt close to her. "Bubbles," he whispered, "my darling--darling Bubbles. I wish that here and now you would make up your mind to give up everything--" He stopped speaking, and bending, kissed her hand. "Yes," she said dreamily. "Give up everything, Bill? Perhaps I will. But what do you mean by everything?" There was a self-pitying note in her low, vibrant voice. "You know it is given to people, sometimes, to choose between good and evil. I'm afraid"--she leant forward, and passed her right hand, with a touch of tenderness most unusual with her, over his upturned face and curly hair--"I'm afraid, Bill, that, almost without knowing it, I chose evil, 'Evil, be thou my good.' Isn't that what the wicked old Satanists used to say?" "Don't you say it too!" he exclaimed, sharply distressed. "I know I acted stupidly--in fact, as we're in a church I don't mind saying I acted very wrongly last night." Bubbles spoke in a serious tone--more seriously, indeed, than she had ever yet spoken to her faithful, long-suffering friend. "But a great deal of what happens to me and round me, Bill, I can't help--I wish I could," she said slowly. "I don't quite understand." There was a painful choking feeling in his throat. "Try and tell me what you mean, Bubbles." "What I mean is clear enough"--she now spoke with a touch of impatience. "I mean that wherever I am, _They_ come too, and gather about me. It wasn't my fault that that horrible Thing appeared to Pegler as soon as I entered the house." "But why should you think the ghost Pegler saw--if she did see it--had anything to do with you? Wyndfell Hall has been haunted for over a hundred years--so the village people say." "Pegler saw nothing till I came. And though I struggle against the belief, and though I very seldom admit it, even to myself, I know quite well, Bill, that I'm never really alone--never free of Them unless--unless, Bill, I'm in a holy place, when they don't dare to come." There was a tone of fear, of awful dread, in her voice. In spite of himself he felt impressed. "But why should they come specially round _you_?" he asked uneasily. "You know as well as I do that I'm a strong medium. But I'll tell you, Bill, something which I've never told you before." "Yes," he said, with a strange sinking of the heart. "What's that, Bubbles?" "You know that Persian magician, or Wise Man, whom certain people in London went cracked over last spring?" "The man you _would_ go and see?" "Yes, of course I mean that man. Well, when he saw me he made his interpreter tell me that he had a special message for me--"