Mrs Wedgwood looked round for a moment, and then said in the most casual way: "Not the smallest doubt of the cause. It is that old man, of course. He is earth-bound, I expect, and haunting the house. You had better take a message from him if you want to get rid of him. I would help you if I could, but I shall be late for my train if I don't start at once." Next morning I took the poor old gentleman's message, which began with an apology and regrets for disturbing me, but went on pathetically: "You must forgive me, I was so very anxious to send a message to my wife, and I saw that you were a sensitive and could take it from me--I did not realise that it might cause you so much discomfort. That lady called me earth-bound, but if I am, it is only through my deep love for my dear wife, and I am permitted to watch over her. I was drawn here by my old affection for this house, and also by your presence here, knowing you could help me." He then gave the message, of which I can only remember that it was most touching in its expressions of deep affection and watchful care for his widow. As we did not know this lady's present address, and could not procure it without raising inconvenient questions, my hostess and I settled that she should lock up the message, in the hope that some day we might be able to forward it. A year later I had a most unpleasant experience of being made to feel seriously ill when I came down for a night from town, and as another clairvoyant assured me that this resulted from the message remaining undelivered and the poor old man's frantic endeavours to reach his wife's consciousness, I told my Wimbledon friend that something _must_ be done. Either she must procure the lady's address "_coute que coute_," or I could not come down again to Wimbledon until this step had been taken. Under pressure of this determination of mine the address was procured, and this led to a rather unpleasant experience. I wrote a very courteous letter to the lady, enclosing the message, and explaining that I was quite debarred from visiting my Wimbledon friend until it was delivered, that I hoped, therefore, she would excuse my sending it, after more than a year's consideration of the question. I further intimated that although she might consider me a lunatic for my pains, I trusted there could be nothing to vex or hurt her in so touching an evidence of her husband's constant care and love, however little faith she might be disposed to place in the source from which the message was supposed to emanate. The answer came as a shower bath on my unfortunate head. The old lady (?) was furious. She had never heard of such wicked nonsense! "_Her dear husband was quite the gentleman, both in clothes and appearance, and he was not old--not a day over sixty-eight--when he died_," etc. etc. It would have been amusing if it had not been rather pitiful to think of the poor "young" man of sixty-eight trying so hard to reach such a termagant!