The tapestry _portières_ were restored to their place--and on the first moonlight night, my father, Philip, Captain Devereux and Mr. Miles held their vigil. What happened? _Nothing_--the peaceful rays lighted up the quaint landscape of the tapestry, undisturbed by the poor groping fingers--no gruesome unearthly chill as of worse than death made itself felt to the midnight watchers--the weary, may we not hope repentant, spirit was at rest at last! And never since has any one been troubled by the shadow in the moonlight. "I cannot help hoping," said Mrs. Devereux, when talking it over, "that what Michael has done may have helped to calm the poor ghost." And she told us what it was. Captain Devereux is rich, though not immensely so. He had the ring valued--it represented a very large sum, but Philip says I had better not name the figures--and then he, so to say, bought it from himself. And with this money he--no, again, Phil says I must not enter into particulars beyond saying that with it he did something very good, and very useful, which had long been a pet scheme of his wife's. Sophy is grown up now and she knows the whole story. So does our mother. And Dormy too has heard it all. The horror of it has quite gone. We feel rather proud of having been the actual witnesses of a ghostly drama. "THE MAN WITH THE COUGH." I am a German by birth and descent. My name is Schmidt. But by education I am quite as much an Englishman as a "Deutscher," and by affection much more the former. My life has been spent pretty equally between the two countries, and I flatter myself I speak both languages without any foreign accent. I count England my headquarters now: it is "home" to me. But a few years ago I was resident in Germany, only going over to London now and then on business. I will not mention the town where I lived. It is unnecessary to do so, and in the peculiar experience I am about to relate I think real names of people and places are just as well, or better, avoided. I was connected with a large and important firm of engineers. I had been bred up to the profession, and was credited with a certain amount of talent; and I was considered--and, with all modesty, I think I deserved the opinion--steady and reliable, so that I had already attained a fair position in the house, and was looked upon as a "rising man". But I was still young, and not quite so wise as I thought myself. I came very near once to making a great mess of a certain affair. It is this story which I am going to tell. Our house went in largely for patents--rather too largely, some thought. But the head partner's son was a bit of a genius in his way, and his father was growing old, and let Herr Wilhelm--Moritz we will call the family name--do pretty much as he chose. And on the whole Herr Wilhelm did well. He was cautious, and he had the benefit of the still greater caution and larger experience of Herr Gerhardt, the second partner in the firm.