Miss Sophia, although certain now that she would receive no assistance from my wife in her siege of Uncle Bainbridge, did not swerve from her determination to subjugate him. I imagine it is rather difficult to give battle when your rival is a ghost: the very intangibility of the tie makes it hard to attack. Yet the person who is in the earth life has certain advantages also. I do not know whether I have mentioned it or not, but Miss Sophia could scarcely be called beautiful. One after another, all her life, she had seen men upon whom she had set her affection become the husbands of other women, and in her duel with the ghost there was a quality of desperation that made the struggle, every move of which I watched, extremely interesting. In spite of her announcement that she did not care to meet Lady Agatha, she learned the code by which she communicated with us, and did not absent herself from our gatherings in the library. Miss Sophia must have been desperate indeed, or she would not have resorted to the trick she used. About a week after Miss Sophia's arrival Lady Agatha suddenly ceased to communicate with us. We grew alarmed, wondering what could have happened to her, as the days passed and the friendly rappings were not resumed. In the light of what happened later I am sure that Miss Sophia deliberately drove Lady Agatha away. What method she used I do not know. But if she had said to Lady Agatha directly the things that she had said to us about her, the insult would have been quite sufficient to make that proud and gentle spirit take her departure. Likely Miss Sophia got into communication with Lady Agatha and hurled at her the bitter question, “Where is Sir Arthur Pelham?” Lady Agatha was not the person to enter into any vulgar quarrel, nor yet to vouchsafe explanations concerning her personal affairs. Several days after Lady Agatha fell silent I heard Uncle Bainbridge bellowing forth questions in the library. I was outside the house near the library window, which was open. Thinking joyously that Lady Agatha had returned to us, I stepped nearer to the window to make sure. I saw at once, as I peeped in, that the bookcase, which set very near the window, had been slightly moved. Miss Sophia, who was very thin, had managed to introduce herself into the triangular space behind it--I had mentioned that it set diagonally across one corner. She was crouched upon the floor rapping out a conversation with Uncle Bainbridge--impersonating Lady Agatha! Uncle Bainbridge, in front of the bookcase, was apparently unsuspicious; nor did Miss Sophia suspect that I saw her through the half-inch of window that commanded her hiding place. “You must marry!” rapped Miss Sophia, in the character of Lady Agatha. “Who?” bellowed Uncle Bainbridge. “Miss Sophia Calderwood,” said the fake ghost. “Aggie, I'm hanged if I do!” yelled Uncle Bainbridge. “Ask me--something--easy!”