Curious noises were now frequently heard in the house. Door handles turned and footsteps tiptoed cautiously about the hall and passages at about two o'clock in the morning. Mrs. Fitzsimmons was the next to have a nasty experience. Going to her room one evening, when everyone else was at supper, she saw the bed valance suddenly move. Thinking it was the cat, she bent down, and was about to call "Puss," when a huge striped thing, shaped, so she thought, something like the trunk of a much gnarled tree, shot out and, rolling swiftly past her, vanished in the wainscoting. She called out, and Fitzsimmons, who came running up, found her leaning against the doorway of their room, laughing hysterically. Two days later, on his return from another fishing expedition, he found that his wife had gone, leaving a note for him pinned to the dressing-table. "You won't see me again," she wrote. "I'm off with Dicky Merryweather. We have discovered we love one another, and that life apart would be simply unendurable. Take care of the children, and try and make them forget me. Get them away from here, if you possibly can. I attribute everything--my changed feelings towards you, and Bobbie and Jane's naughtiness--to the presence of that beastly thing." * * * * * Of course it was a terrible blow to Fitzsimmons, and he told me that if it had not been for the children he would have committed suicide there and then. He was devotedly attached to his wife, and the thought that she no longer cared for him made him yearn to die. However, Bobbie and Jane were dependent on him, and for their sakes he determined to go on living. A week passed--to Fitzsimmons the saddest and dreariest of his life--and he once again came tramping home in the twilight. Not troubling now whether he saw the ghost or not, for there was no one to care whether he was good or bad, or what became of him, he slouched through the coombe with his long stride more marked and apparent than usual. On nearing the house and noticing that there was no bright light, such as he had been accustomed to, in any of the front windows, but only the feeble flare of the oil lamp over the front door, a terrible feeling of loneliness came over him. He let himself in. The hall was in semi-darkness, and he could hear no sounds from the kitchen. He could see a glimmer of light, however, issuing from under the kitchen door, and he promptly steered for it. The cook, Agatha, was sitting in front of the fire, reading a sixpenny novel. "Why is the house in darkness?" Fitzsimmons asked angrily. "Surely it is dinner-time." The cook yawned, and looking up at Fitzsimmons, said: "It's not my place to light up. It's Rosalie's." "Where is Rosalie?" Fitzsimmons demanded.