"'I didn't feel able to ask anything further, and the old woman went away. I dressed as fast as I could, left my breakfast untouched, and ran as quickly as possible into the open air to try and shake off the dreadful feeling of unreality--as if everything was a horrible dream--which had taken possession of me again. That night, without my having given any orders on the subject, Mistress Anne made up my bed in a nice cheerful room facing the street. I have never said another word to her about what I heard and saw, far less to Falter. Do me the favour, you two, to say nothing about it either, or there will only be a lot of annoying tittle-tattle, and endless troublesome questions, and, very likely, all the bother of a formal investigation by the Psychological Society. Even in the room where I sleep now, I feel pretty certain I can hear the footsteps and the sobs every night at midnight. However, I mean to put up with it the best way I can for a short time, and then try to get rid of the house as quietly as possible, and look out for another.' "When Alexander had finished, there was a short silence. Then Marzell said: "'All this about your old aunt haunting the house is strange and uncanny enough. But, firmly as I believe that an extraneous Spiritual Principle, or "Entity," has the power of making itself felt by, or perceptible to, us in some way or other, this adventure of yours strikes one as being very largely tinctured with a purely material element. The footsteps, and the sighing and sobbing, might pass well enough: but that the poor old aunt deceased should go and swallow stomachic drops, as she did when she was feeling a little out of sorts in this life--well, it's too much like the lady who, when she revisited the glimpses of the moon after death, used to scrabble outside the window like a cat shut out by accident.'