It is almost impossible for me to describe the extraordinary sensation that crept over me. There was something so uncanny in the whole proceeding. Now, I have already said I was not a superstitious man, and I think I may also assert that I was by no means lacking in courage. Nevertheless, for the moment I was the prey to a feeling of absolute funk. Then suddenly I thought that a trick was being tried upon me, and anger got the better of my funk. I seized the poker from the fireplace, rushed to the panel, got it open with some little difficulty, and peered into the darkness, but saw nothing; listened intently, but heard nothing. Next I snatched a candle from the table and proceeded down the passage, but found no living thing, and the doors were properly fastened. Returning to the dining-room, I sat down to think, and came to the conclusion that I had been the victim of a trick of the brain, and laughed at my own folly. But when a quarter of an hour later I went upstairs to my bedroom I experienced an unaccountable and absolutely unusual feeling of nervousness. The next day my first impulse was to tell my wife of the remarkable incident of the night previous; my second to do nothing of the sort, but keep it a locked secret in my own breast. A week later my daughter Phyllis had been with me in the library. She was a clever shorthand writer, and had been taking some important letters down from my dictation. As the clock on the mantelpiece chimed out midnight I told her to cease work and go to her bed. She wished me good-night, and trotted off. A few minutes passed, then the door of the library was flung violently open, and Phyllis, half fainting, looking ghastly pale, and with a ‘scared-to-death’ appearance of face, rushed in and clung wildly to me. ‘What’s the matter, child; what’s the matter?’ I cried in alarm; but she remained speechless. Moments, perhaps minutes, slipped by, during which I kept urging her to speak. She found her voice at last sufficient to jerk out in a breathless way: ‘Oh, pa, I’ve had such a fright. When I got up to the first landing such a strange-looking man was standing there. I was about to ask him what he was doing, when he raised his hand in a sort of warning way and disappeared.’ I laughed, but it wasn’t a genuine laugh, and I pretended to speak lightly, as I said: ‘My dear child, I’ve been over-working you and your poor tired brain has seen visions. Come, let me take you upstairs to your room. You must try and get a good night’s rest. You will be all right to-morrow.’ She gave me a look that was full of meaning. She said with her eyes as plainly as possible, ‘Don’t try to turn it off in that way. I have seen what I have seen.’ She had mastered her feelings by this time, and though she spoke no words, she went upstairs with me until we reached the first landing, which was lighted in the daytime by a long stained-glass window. Edging a little closer to me, she whispered, ‘This was where I saw him.’