altar in the chapel at night, and had been much interested in the "vain repetitions" and other audible ejaculations which he was offering up with many contortions of his attenuated form. "Isn't he enjoying himself?" Diavolo whispered. "He must be in training to wrestle with the devil when they meet," Angelica surmised. But all this was having a bad effect upon the old duke. In private, he and Lady Fulda and the priest talked of nothing but apparitions and supernatural occurrences generally. Lord Dawne had obtained a hint of what was going on from some chance observations of the Heavenly Twins, but until the day after Angelica's return from the palace neither his father nor sister had spoken to him on the subject. That morning, however, he happened to go into the chapel to see how the colours were lasting in some decorative work which he had done there himself years before, and there he found his father standing in the aisle to the right of the altar near the door of the sacristy, gazing up fixedly at a particular panel in the dark oakwork which covered that portion of the wall. "Anything wrong, father?" he said, going up to him. "Dawne," the old duke replied in an undertone, touching his son's arm with the point of the forefinger of his left hand, and pointing up to the panel with the stick he held in his right: "Dawne, if it were not for what that panel conceals--" he ended by folding his hands on the top of his stick, looking down at the pavement, and shaking his head. "I saw it in a dream first," he resumed, looking up at the panel. "But now it appears during every service. It comes out. It stretches its baby hands to me. It sobs, it sighs, it begs, it prays; and sometimes it smiles, and then there are dimples about its innocent mouth." Some disturbance of the atmosphere caused Lord Dawne to look round at this moment, although he had heard nothing, and he was startled to find his sister Fulda standing behind him, looking as awestruck as the duke. "We must tear down that panel!" the old man exclaimed, becoming excited. "We must exorcise, and purify, and cleanse the house. It is that--that"--shaking his stick at the panel--"which hinders the Event! Bury it deep! bury it deep! give it the holy rites, and _then!_" His voice dropped. He muttered something inaudible, and walked feebly down the aisle. Lady Fulda followed him out of the chapel, but presently she returned. Her brother was still standing as she had left him, looking now at the pavement and now at the panel, and deep in thought. His grave face lighted with tenderness as he turned to meet her. She was very pale. "I am afraid all this is too much for you, Fulda," he said seriously. "No. This is nothing," she answered. "Nothing--no _human_ excitement ever disturbs me. But, Dawne, I have seen _it_ myself!" "It! What, Fulda?"