"What happened?" I asked breathlessly. "I believe I had a fit," my uncle answered slowly; "at any rate, I was very ill." "And you missed the new moon on the grave?" "I missed the new moon on the grave." "And you never saw her again?" "I never saw her again----" "But, uncle, do you really believe?--Can the dead?--was she--did you----" My uncle took out his pipe and filled it. "It's a long time ago," he said, "a many, many years. Old man's tales, my dear! Old man's tales! Don't you take any notice of them." He lighted the pipe, puffed silently a moment or two, and then added: "But I know what youth means, and happiness, though I was lame, and the girls used to laugh at me." _THE MYSTERY OF THE SEMI-DETACHED._ He was waiting for her; he had been waiting an hour and a half in a dusty suburban lane, with a row of big elms on one side and some eligible building sites on the other--and far away to the south-west the twinkling yellow lights of the Crystal Palace. It was not quite like a country lane, for it had a pavement and lamp-posts, but it was not a bad place for a meeting all the same; and farther up, towards the cemetery, it was really quite rural, and almost pretty, especially in twilight. But twilight had long deepened into night, and still he waited. He loved her, and he was engaged to be married to her, with the complete disapproval of every reasonable person who had been consulted. And this half-clandestine meeting was to-night to take the place of the grudgingly sanctioned weekly interview--because a certain rich uncle was visiting at her house, and her mother was not the woman to acknowledge to a moneyed uncle, who might "go off" any day, a match so deeply ineligible as hers with him. So he waited for her, and the chill of an unusually severe May evening entered into his bones. The policeman passed him with but a surly response to his "Good night." The bicyclists went by him like grey ghosts with fog-horns; and it was nearly ten o'clock, and she had not come. He shrugged his shoulders and turned towards his lodgings. His road led him by her house--desirable, commodious, semi-detached--and he walked slowly as he neared it. She might, even now, be coming out. But she was not. There was no sign of movement about the house, no sign of life, no lights even in the windows. And her people were not early people. He paused by the gate, wondering. Then he noticed that the front door was open--wide open--and the street lamp shone a little way into the dark hall. There was something about all this that did not please him--that scared him a little, indeed. The house had a gloomy and deserted air. It was obviously impossible that it harboured a rich uncle. The old man must have left early. In which case----