The canon listened in silence to what the doctor had to say, but Palmer, watching him, formed the idea that he listened unwillingly. And whether the doctor told his story badly, or whether the canon happened to be in a particularly sceptical mood, the result certainly seemed to be that he took the matter very lightly indeed. Of course, Bradley had always been eccentric and irritable. No doubt he was a little rundown. A holiday, a complete change, was what he needed: it would set him on his feet again in no time: the canon would make a note to talk to him about it. And that was all! He sank back in his chair with a little smile, and folded his hands. Aunt Caroline, it is true, was more impressed, but what amazed, and then exasperated the doctor, was that neither of them appeared in the least to realize the gravity of the matter in its relation to Grif, or even to admit that it applied to him at all. “You don’t seriously want me to believe the man is mad, do you?” the canon exclaimed at last. He seemed even a little bored by the doctor’s persistence: and he slewed round sharply to stare at Palmer, who was sitting very quietly in his corner. The doctor not only wanted him to believe it, but went over for the third time all the evidence Palmer had managed to collect. Canon Annesley drummed with his fingers on the table. Apparently he was not yet convinced. He quite frankly, as he said, found it impossible to believe that Mr. Bradley had had anything to do with Grif’s illness. No man would do such a thing as deliberately to terrify a child――especially a child he obviously liked. “I really think, doctor, and certainly I hope, you are mistaken. He may have been foolish enough, or thoughtless enough, to tell the boy a ghost-story, not realizing that he had to do with a rather too active imagination: but that there is more in it than that――――” He again had a good look at Palmer, whom he evidently believed to be somehow at the bottom of the whole business. He even went so far as to administer to Master Dorset what was, for him, a fairly strong reproof. “I think, Palmer, it would be better if you did not keep quite so close a watch upon your neighbours. A habit of suspicion is of all things the most intolerable, and it is one which, if you don’t try to check it, I am afraid will grow upon you.” A faint flush rose to Palmer’s cheeks, but he answered nothing. Doctor O’Neill, however, replied for him. “There’s no use blaming the boy. I consider that throughout the whole matter he has given proof of the highest intelligence and courage.” “I never for a moment doubted either his intelligence or his courage, doctor,” said the canon, mildly, “and of course if he thought Grif was being injured by his friendship with Bradley, it was right of him to tell somebody so:――he might even have mentioned it to us! I was only referring to a bias of mind which may sometimes lead one to brood over things that have not quite the significance we read into them.”