"I never thought it was!" he vociferated. "Let me tell you you're the biggest puzzle of the lot. I shan't be a bit surprised if you say you are the fellow who hanged somebody here, and persuaded old Garth to stand the racket." So, to pass the time while the nurse was eating a meal, Dalrymple told him the story of Barapur, and Percy heard, and was subdued, since he knew now that, come what might, Marguerite Ogilvey was lost to him forever. Then, while Dalrymple was surveying the day's work of Smith and his men, and declaring it was good, there came a messenger from Bellerby on a borrowed bicycle, bearing a telegram. It was from Marguerite, and Dalrymple's heart danced with joy when he read: "All is well. Father leaves for York to-night. He will join mother and me early to-morrow. Expect us about ten o'clock. Am detaining car. Love, MEG." All is well! What was well? It was a woman's message, which assumed everything and told nothing, except the one amazing fact that Stephen Ogilvey's wife had evidently decided that the period of concealment was ended, and that her husband should now vindicate himself in the eyes of his world. At any rate, a youth returned to Bellerby with two bicycles and the richer by two sovereigns, so it is tolerably certain that Dalrymple's few words of congratulation were not delayed on the way. The new tenant smoked and mused in the garden for another hour, until Betty came to summon him to dinner. He was entering the house when he saw the ghost again, a phantom divested now of eeriness, because a round blob of sunshine shone on the wall instead of the white sockets of eyes which lent such a ghoulish aspect to the shadowy face. Then he did a queer thing. Lifting the grandfather's clock, and disregarding the protest of weights and pendulum thumping against its wooden ribs, he placed it exactly where the reflection of the window fell. Instantly, the ghost vanished. The dark mahogany case absorbed the outlines of the figure. The old Spanish wood glowed richly here and there where the lights were strongest, and a disk of gold illumined the dull brass of the clock's face. And that was the end of the Elmdale ghost! Never again would it be seen until someone moved the clock, and Sir Robert Dalrymple vowed that such alteration should not occur in his time. Luckily, Dr. Scaife came just as Dalrymple was sitting down to a solitary meal, and he was promptly bidden to the feast. Dalrymple showed him Marguerite's telegram, and they discussed it for an hour, or longer, though with no result, for they could only theorize, and, since truth is stranger than fiction, even two such acute minds failed to arrive at the actual solution of the mystery.