“Follow me through a page of unwritten local history,” said Chester Kent, straightening up. “The beginning of this story goes back some seventy-five years, when there lived, not far from Hogg’s Haven, in a house which has since been destroyed, an older sister of Captain Hogg, who married into the Grosvenor family. She was, from the evidence of the Grosvenor family historian, who, by the way, has withheld all this from his pages, a woman of the most extraordinary charm and magnetism. Not beautiful, in the strict sense of the word, she had a gift beyond beauty, and she led men in chains. Her husband appears to have been a weakling who counted for nothing in her life after the birth of her children. Seeking distraction, she flung herself into mysticism and became the priestess of a cult of star-worshipers, which included many of the more cultivated people of this region. Among them was a young German mystic and philosopher, who had fled to this country to escape punishment for political offenses. Hermann von Miltz was his name.” “That’s why she called me Hermann,” broke in Preston, in an awed half whisper. “Don’t jump to wild conclusions,” said Kent smilingly. “Some of their correspondence is still extant. She signed herself Astræa, in handwriting similar to the signature of that note of yours, Jax. There seems to have been no guilt between them, as the law judges guilt. The bond was a mystic one. But it was none the less fatal. It culminated in a tragedy of which the details are lost. Perhaps it was an elopement that they planned; perhaps a double suicide, with the idea that their souls would be united in death. There are hints of that in the old letters in the historian’s possession and in the library at Hedgerow House. This much is known: The couple embarked together in a small boat. Von Miltz was never again heard of. Camilla Grosvenor’s body came ashore in Lonesome Cove. She was the Cove’s earliest recorded victim. The sketch which that mischief-monger, Elder Dennett, left at your door, Sedgwick, supposing it to be a likeness of the unfortunate creature he had seen on the road to your house, is a Charles Elliott sketch for the portrait of Camilla Grosvenor.” “My God!” Jax burst out, “was it a ghost I met up with that night on Hawkill Heights?” “As near a ghost as you are ever likely to encounter, probably,” answered Kent. “But, see here,” said Adam Bain, “I’m a lawyer. The law doesn’t deal with ghosts or near-ghosts. Are you trying to tell us, Professor Kent, that the soul of this long-dead Astræa-Camilla Grosvenor, came back to inhabit the body of the Jane Doe of Lonesome Cove?”