Her mind, her spirit--that’s what intrigued
me. What is she? What’s behind? Why did Fungus turn tail like that? Queer, too, about her finding the atmosphere of the Gate-house so
tranquil. The late tenants, I remember, didn’t find that soothing touch
about it!”

“How do you account for that?” I asked. “There might be several explanations. You might say that the late
tenants were fanciful, imaginative people, and that the present tenant
is a sensible, matter-of-fact woman. Certainly she seemed to be.”

“Or----” I suggested. He laughed. “Well, you might say--mind, I don’t say so--but you might say that
the--the spiritual tenants of the house find Mrs. Acres a congenial
companion, and want to retain her. So they keep quiet, and don’t upset
the cook’s nerves!”

Somehow this answer exasperated and jarred on me. “What do you mean?” I said. “The spiritual tenant of the house, I
suppose, is the man who betrayed his brother and hanged himself. Why
should he find a charming woman like Mrs. Acres a congenial companion?”

Charles got up briskly. Usually he is more than ready to discuss such
topics, but to-night it seemed that he had no such inclination. “Didn’t Madge tell us not to be long?” he asked. “You know how I run on
if I once get on that subject, Tony, so don’t give me the opportunity.”

“But why did you say that?” I persisted. “Because I was talking nonsense. You know me well enough to be aware
that I am an habitual criminal in that respect.”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was indeed strange to find how completely both the first impression
that Madge had formed of Mrs. Acres and the feeling that followed so
quickly on its heels were endorsed by those who, during the next week
or two, did a neighbour’s duty to the newcomer. All were loud in praise
of her charm, her pleasant, kindly wit, her good looks, her beautiful
clothes, but even while this _Lob-gesang_ was in full chorus it would
suddenly die away, and an uneasy silence descended, which somehow was
more eloquent than all the appreciative speech. Odd, unaccountable
little incidents had occurred, which were whispered from mouth to
mouth till they became common property. The same fear that Fungus had
shown of her was exhibited by another dog. A parallel case occurred
when she returned the call of our parson’s wife. Mrs. Dowlett had a
cage of canaries in the window of her drawing-room. These birds had
manifested symptoms of extreme terror when Mrs. Acres entered the room,
beating themselves against the wires of their cage, and uttering the
alarm-note.... She inspired some sort of inexplicable fear, over which
we, as trained and civilised human beings, had control, so that we
behaved ourselves. But animals, without that check, gave way altogether
to it, even as Fungus had done. Mrs. Acres entertained; she gave charming little dinner-parties of
eight, with a couple of tables at bridge to follow, but over these
evenings there hung a blight and a blackness. No doubt the sinister
story of the panelled parlour contributed to this. This curious secret dread of her, of which as on that first evening
at my house, she appeared to be completely unconscious differed very
widely in degree. Most people, like myself, were conscious of it,
but only very remotely so, and we found ourselves at the Gate-house
behaving quite as usual, though with this unease in the background. But with a few, and most of all with Madge, it grew into a sort of
obsession. She made every effort to combat it; her will was entirely
set against it, but her struggle seemed only to establish its power
over her. The pathetic and pitiful part was that Mrs. Acres from
the first had taken a tremendous liking to her, and used to drop in
continually, calling first to Madge at the window, in that pleasant,
serene voice of hers, to tell Fungus that the hated one was imminent. Then came a day when Madge and I were bidden to a party at the
Gate-house on Christmas evening. This was to be the last of Mrs.
Acres’s hospitalities for the present, since she was leaving
immediately afterwards for a couple of months in Egypt. So, with this
remission ahead, Madge almost gleefully accepted the bidding. But when
the evening came she was seized with so violent an attack of sickness
and shivering that she was utterly unable to fulfil her engagement. Her
doctor could find no physical trouble to account for this: it seemed
that the anticipation of her evening alone caused it, and here was the
culmination of her shrinking from our kindly and pleasant neighbour. She could only tell me that her sensations, as she began to dress for
the party, were like those of that moment in sleep when somewhere in
the drowsy brain nightmare is ripening. Something independent of her
will revolted at what lay before her....

       *       *       *       *       *

Spring had begun to stretch herself in the lap of winter when next the
curtain rose on this veiled drama of forces but dimly comprehended and
shudderingly conjectured; but then, indeed, nightmare ripened swiftly
in broad noon. And this was the way of it. Charles Alington had again come to stay with us five days before
Easter, and expressed himself as humorously disappointed to find that
the subject of his curiosity was still absent from the Gate-house. On
the Saturday morning before Easter he appeared very late for breakfast,
and Madge had already gone her ways. I rang for a fresh teapot, and
while this was on its way he took up _The Times_. “I only read the outside page of it,” he said. “The rest is too full of
mere materialistic dullnesses--politics, sports, money-market----”

He stopped, and passed the paper over to me. “There, where I’m pointing,” he said--“among the deaths. The first one.”

What I read was this:

  “ACRES, BERTHA. Died at sea, Thursday night, 30th March, and by her
  own request buried at sea. (Received by wireless from P. & O. steamer
  _Peshawar_. )”

He held out his hand for the paper again, and turned over the leaves. “Lloyd’s,” he said. “The _Peshawar_ arrived at Tilbury yesterday
afternoon. The burial must have taken place somewhere in the English
Channel.”

       *       *       *       *       *

On the afternoon of Easter Sunday Madge and I motored out to the golf
links three miles away. She proposed to walk along the beach just
outside the dunes while I had my round, and return to the club-house
for tea in two hours’ time. The day was one of most lucid spring: a
warm south-west wind bowled white clouds along the sky, and their
shadows jovially scudded over the sandhills. We had told her of Mrs.
Acres’s death, and from that moment something dark and vague which had
been lying over her mind since the autumn seemed to join this fleet of
the shadows of clouds and leave her in sunlight. We parted at the door
of the club-house, and she set out on her walk.