“I don’t wish to make a joke of it,” said Hewson, gravely, in compliance with her mood. “But I don’t understand, quite, how you could have got the story over there in time for you--” “It was cabled to their London edition--that’s what it said in the paper; and by this time they must have it in Australia,” said Miss Hernshaw, with unrelieved severity. “Oh!” said Hewson, giving himself time to realize that he was the psychical hero of two hemispheres. “Well,” he resumed “what do you expect me to say?” “I don’t know what I expect. I expected you to say something without my prompting you. You know that it was outrageous for me to talk about your apparition without your leave, and to be the means of its getting into the newspapers.” “I’m not sure you were the means. I have told the story a hundred times, myself.” “But that doesn’t excuse me. You knew the kind of people to tell it to, and I didn’t.” “Oh, I am afraid I was willing to tell it to all kinds of people--to any kind that would listen.” “You are trying to evade me, Mr. Hewson,” she said, with a severity he found charming. “I didn’t expect that of you.” The appeal was not lost upon Hewson. “What do you want me to say?” “I want you,” said Miss Hernshaw, with an effect of giving him another trial, “to say--to acknowledge that you were terribly annoyed by that interview.” “If you will excuse me from attaching the slightest blame to you for it, I will acknowledge that I was annoyed.” Miss Hernshaw drew a deep breath as of relief. “I will arrange about the blame,” she said loftily. “And now I wish to tell you how I never supposed that girl was an interviewer. We were all together at an artist’s house in Rome, and after dinner, we got to telling ghost-stories, the way people do, around the fire, and I told mine--yours I mean. And before we broke up, this girl came to me--it was while we were putting on our wraps--and introduced herself, and said how much she had been impressed by my story--of course, I mean your story--and she said she supposed it was made up. I said I should not dream of making up a thing of that kind, and that it was every word true, and I had heard the person it happened to tell it himself. I don’t know! I was vain of having heard it, so, at first hand.” “I can understand,” said Hewson, sadly. “And then I told her who the person was, and where it happened--and about the burglary. You can’t imagine how silly people get when they begin going in that direction.” “I am afraid I can,” said Hewson.