II. NOON

As the morning stole away and the pearly mists melted before the caressing touch of the sun, Peggy felt her own ill temper vanishing into nothingness. Perhaps she had been disposed to resent Trevor’s air of complete proprietorship, perhaps she had been too quick in reading a wrong interpretation of what he had said. She was conscious, moreover, that she was more deeply interested in this psychic business than she had pretended. There was a romantic, dreamy side to her nature which she shyly hid, almost from herself, but it was there, all the same, and she was always conscious of it.

And there was another matter, a sacred thing of which she spoke but seldom and then with dimmed eyes and bated breath. Because there had been a time when Long Elms and its estate and all the revenues thereto had not belonged to Peggy, but to her only brother, who had been killed in the Great War. He like Trevor Capner, had had a brilliant career in the Air Force, where he had won the Victoria Cross in a never-to-be-forgotten exploit, only to be brought down during the very last week of the war in flames. And though Peggy was but a child at the time and many years had elapsed since, she had never forgotten her brother Victor, to whom she had been devoted and who had represented to her all that was worth while in the world. Even now, there were times when she woke in the night and thought of her dead brother, and there were times when he seemed to be very near to her, so near, indeed, that she could almost touch him. As if he were somewhere behind a veil striving in vain to get in contact with her.

It was not until after Sebastian Wilde had come into the neighbourhood and she had fallen somewhat under his influence that she began, tentatively, to discuss these mysteries with that eminent man of science. And he had not laughed at her, as she had half expected. On the contrary, he had been most understanding and sympathetic.

“Of course,” he had said. “There are such things as mediums. Second sight and intermediaries and all that sort of thing. They are gifts you can cultivate–in fact, I have cultivated them myself. It is rather out of my line, but more than once I have succeeded in conjuring up pictures that almost frighten me. There is a scientific basis for them all, if we only knew what it was, but I hesitate to carry you along that path with me. Your temperament is too highly strung and romantic. If anything happened to you, I should never cease to blame myself. I mean, if anything happened to you mentally. Mind you, I am not saying that you could not rise to heights, but one never can tell, especially when dealing with one of your sex. And I am not going to say it is impos