“They would only say I imagined it,” she said, “and laugh at me for believing in a ghost. Besides, if I did tell them they wouldn’t understand, as it wasn’t a ghost.” And after a time the incident slipped back into the dim recesses of her memory, only to be called back at a later date. CHAPTER VIII Two years had passed away, and the January of the third had begun. The scene was once again upon the hillside, a bright starlit night in January 1889. But the same miserable wind of two years back was moaning through the trees, and well it might. On the broken seat sat Genius all alone, his head bent in his hands, unconscious of the wind, the cold, the night. Whilst he sat thus thoughtful Plucritus glided silent on the scene. The blood-red light from the blood-red ring shone round about him in glorious, feverish light. There was nothing dull nor dark about it now. “Ho! you here, Genius? How disappointing! I came for a little quiet midnight stroll far from the haunts of spirits and of men, only to meet with you.” “Liar!” And looking up Genius revealed a face fraught with all pain and suffering. “Call me what names you will, I am in glorious form to-night. I have compassed death and bound a captive, spreading much suffering.” “Ay. And be careful in that same net you get not bound yourself,” Genius observed, springing up. “Threats are like foam on water—idle and useless when applied to me. I have been with the farmer through all his so-called agony, and it was very fine.” “Is he then dead?” “Oh! dead as these sodden leaves beneath us is his body. Drowned in the winter water. I was with him to the end. I whispered in his ear his many sins, I and my brother. And when the end came the heavens were shining bloody red around the dying sun, and their ironical glory struck even him.” “And well they might,” said Genius, speaking huskily, “and well they might.” “Once I remember when he was a lad he fell in the mill dam and was dragged out more dead than living. Later in life, perhaps some fifteen years ago from now, he went to London with a friend to look round an exhibition. As they stood watching some machinery working the thing exploded. By curious fate the friend beside him was killed upon the spot, but he remained untouched. He returned to the country alone. The one was taken and the other left. Is it not strange that he whom Providence twice spared as by a miracle should in the end have come to curse his birth and take his life?” “Yes, it is strange,” replied Genius, “and passing strange. Devil incarnate! how much had you to do with it?”