But Sophy began to tremble again; her thoughts reverted to M. Felix. "I daren't go to the room Mr. Tucker took me to; Mr. Felix's ghost'd come agin. Let me sleep 'ere, please." "There's no bed, my girl. I tell you what you shall do. There are two beds in the next room--see, this door opens into it--which Mr. Tucker and I were to occupy. We'll bring a mattress and some bedclothes in here, and we'll manage for the night; I'll lie on the sofa. You shall sleep in there, where no ghost can get to you. It would have to come through this room first." Sophy busied herself at once in bringing the mattress and bedclothes from the adjoining room, and after extemporizing a couple of beds for Bob and me wished us a grateful good-night. Bob and I were alone. "Now, Bob," said I, "what do you think of her story?" "There's more in it than meets the eye," said Bob. "Agnold, if any other person had related it I should set it down to an overwrought mind. But Sophy is an exceptional being; she is sharp, she is clever, she is brave, she is clear-witted. Naturally it is a puzzling affair, and I think it is worth arguing out." "Let us do so, Bob," I said. "It is always a mistake," said Bob, "in matters of conjecture, to pin one's self to a fixed point. This mistake, in my opinion, has been committed in all inquiries relating to the mystery of M. Felix. Having accepted a certain conclusion every person privately or professionally interested in the mystery started from that fixed point and branched out in all directions, north, east, south, and west, utterly ignoring the possibility--in this case I should say the probability--of the conclusion they accepted being a false one, as misleading as a will-o'-the-wisp." "Am I included in this sweeping condemnation?" I asked. "You are. The police I can excuse, but not a man of your discrimination and logical power." "What fixed point, Bob, did I, in common with everyone else, start from in wild directions?" "The fixed point," replied Bob, "that M. Felix is dead." "But he was proved to be dead." "Nothing of the sort. There was no post-mortem, there was not even an inquest. He is said to have died of heart disease. He lies inanimate on a bed for an inconsiderable number of hours, and then he disappears. My dear Agnold, have you ever heard of such a thing as suspended animation?" "Of course I have." "Have you ever heard of a person falling into a trance, and remaining to all appearance dead for three or four times as many hours as M. Felix lay before he disappeared? People have been buried alive in such conditions; others have been happily rescued at the moment the lids of their coffins have been about to be nailed down. I can furnish you with scores of instances of this kind of thing."