"I am my own man again now," said he. "I was never so unmanned before. But, with your leave, Peterson, I will sleep here to-night, for I don't think I could face that road again except by daylight. It's weak, I know, but I can't help it." Peterson looked at his visitor with a very questioning eye. "Of course you shall sleep here if you wish. I'll tell Mrs. Burney to make up the spare bed. Where are you off to now?" "Come up with me to the window that overlooks the door. I want you to see what I have seen." They went up to the window of the upper hall whence they could look down upon the approach to the house. The drive and the fields on either side lay quiet and still, bathed in the peaceful moonlight. "Well, really, Smith," remarked Peterson, "it is well that I know you to be an abstemious man. What in the world can have frightened you?" "I'll tell you presently. But where can it have gone? Ah, now look, look! See the curve of the road just beyond your gate." "Yes, I see; you needn't pinch my arm off. I saw someone pass. I should say a man, rather thin, apparently, and tall, very tall. But what of him? And what of yourself? You are still shaking like an aspen leaf." "I have been within hand-grip of the devil, that's all. But come down to your study, and I shall tell you the whole story." He did so. Under the cheery lamplight, with a glass of wine on the table beside him, and the portly form and florid face of his friend in front, he narrated, in their order, all the events, great and small, which had formed so singular a chain, from the night on which he had found Bellingham fainting in front of the mummy case until his horrid experience of an hour ago. "There now," he said as he concluded, "that's the whole black business. It is monstrous and incredible, but it is true." Dr. Plumptree Peterson sat for some time in silence with a very puzzled expression upon his face. "I never heard of such a thing in my life, never!" he said at last. "You have told me the facts. Now tell me your inferences." "You can draw your own." "But I should like to hear yours. You have thought over the matter, and I have not."