blessed and comforted for the struggle of years that yet lies before them." His voice was deep and earnest, his handsome face glowed with enthusiasm. I touched his hand, and a sweet, pathetic smile came to his lips. "Mr. Elsdale," I said, "I thank you from my heart. May I venture to ask if you believe in spiritual visitations?" "Believing what I believe," he replied, "I must believe in them." "You have spoken," I continued, "of receiving comfort and consolation from such belief. Do you think that a man who is not, to his own knowledge, interested or involved in something which, for the sake of argument, I will call a crime, may receive a spiritual visitation which compels him to take an active part in it?" "Not in the crime," asked Ronald, "in the discovery of it, I suppose you mean?" "Yes. In the discovery of it." "I think," said Ronald, "that a man who is not in any way connected with it may be made an agent in its discovery." We had some further conversation on the subject, and at the expiration of an hour or so Ronald Elsdale took his departure, and expressed the hope that we should meet again, to which hope I cordially responded. As he stood with his hand on the handle of the door, the cat, which had risen when he rose, stood at his feet. "Are you going with him?" I mentally asked. "You are quite welcome." A troubled expression crossed Ronald's face, and he made a motion with his hand as if to dispel it. Then he left the room, but the cat remained. CHAPTER XI. BOB RELATES TO ME SOME PARTICULARS OF RONALD ELSDALE'S DELUSION. I listened to the blind gentleman's footsteps as he slowly descended the stairs, and I asked Bob if he considered it safe to allow his nephew to go home unaccompanied. "Quite safe," replied Bob. "When a man loses the sense of sight he acquires other senses which have not been precisely defined; he seems to have eyes at his fingers' ends. And Ronald prefers to be alone." "Can you account," I inquired, approaching a subject which I knew was in Bob's mind, and to which he was unwilling to be the first to refer, "for his impression that there was another presence in the room beside ourselves?" "I cannot," said Bob curtly; "nor can you." "I do not pretend that I can; but it has set me thinking. Would you object to let me into the secret of the delusion under which he labors?"