The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-16

was averse. it Is true, to Gwenny hay-
 ing that room, but my wife had set her
 heart on it, and thought it would
 make more stir to explain than to let it
 pass. And all these weeks that child
 has been suffering in silence! She says
 that after it has shown her it's face it
 melts away, as 1t were, into the big cor-
 ner cupboard. What do you say to
 that?"
 "The cupboard where he hanged him-
 self, sir?"
 "The same"
 What do you mean to do, colonel?" My wife has gone to bed with a
 headache. l told them to make me up the dressing bed. and I would
 sleep there. as I had some accounts to
 go through, and might be very late. I
 have just sent Gwenny to bed with a
 dose of bromide that will keep her fast
 and sound for the next nine hours. She
 was very brave and good about sleep- ing alone in the room that she so fears and dislikes, but promised her that
 this should be the last night in it, and that I would watch her and keep her safe. Here we are"-Softly tiptoeing across the veranda, and letting himself insat one of the drawing-room windows VI am going to open Gwenny's door there across the passage and shall sit and watch--and you can remain here, just within call; smoke if you like, but don't drop off to sleep if you can help it; and if see anything will call, and you must come and bear witness"
 Danvers hardly knew whether to laugh or not at the colonel's simple, ghost-trapping preparations, but after all they were sensible, matter-of-fact measures, which would reassure Gwen ny tomorrow morning when she woke after a long, refreshing sleep, and learnt that the spell was broken and nothing supernatural had been seen.
 About two hours later: "Danvers, come" sounded in hoarse whisper across the passage. Roger was at the colonePs side in a second.
 What was that? In the faint light of the bedroom. where a night-lamp burned, aided by the rays from the pas- sage-lamp outside, the two watchers in the doorway could see slight, shad- owy figure on the farther side of Gwen- nys bed--a figure that was strangely familiar to them both. for, though but It's side and shoulder were to them, NlACS ACNO6ulHSQ CllC anu Slldp6 of Charlie Kettering, the smartest young fellow the regiment had ever known. The thing stopped over Gwen ny's pillow and held out its arms, but the girl lay perfectly still, her face hid- den from them, and after what seemed an hour of horror 1t lifted itself up erect and turned away. Then at the bottom of the bed it halted for moment and slowly cast lingering glance around the room, moving it's head deliberately till it looked full in the faces of the two men not twenty feet away-it was the face of Charlie Kettering as the colo mel and the major had last seen it eigh- teen months before, livid and terrible from his own suicidal act!
 Hold back-hold back! don't wake Gwenny; it might kill her." the colonel as Roger struggled hard to dash into the room the figure was gone gone even as they looked melting away in the direction of the great cor ner cupboard which Mrs. Travers had decorated for her daughter. "Here, help me with this,'' and stepping across to Gwennys bed he lifted one end of the little mattress on which the girl lay and signed to Danvers to take the other.
 wen have her out of this!" And without another word they carried her across the passage to the colonel's and laid her, just as she was on the colonel'S bed. Her father looked at her anxiously. "No, believe It's all right the bromide hasn't failed me; whatever that devilish thing was, tonight she has not seen 1t. And to think that we have let her suffer this without finding out! Cad, man, why lon't you speak? what do you think it wasp
 ''I don't think, colonel-I know 1t was Charlie Ketterlng."
 
 Next morning Gwenny woke up very ate for breakfast, and told her father hat she had splendid night-not q lream nor a sound had disturbed her, IS he might see for himself if it was he vho had carried her bodily into the lressing-room. How in the world did le manage to lift her mattress like that III alone? But the colonel kept his ,wn counsel, and sent Rosina to bring Ter her toilet necessaries, for he could rot even bear that she should enter the pink room again. And in the course of he day. such was the coloneTs talent or organization, Mrs. and Miss Tra- rers found themselves packed on a vis- which had long been impending, but which was now decided on all in a hur- " as the drains of the bungalow were ound to require immediate attention. And when some weeks later they re- urned to Pul1kapore 1t was to find the olonel established in brand new quar- CTS, for the engineer had given his ver- ict that the old bungalow was quite % hopeless a job to spend money over.
 The two ladies were immensely leased with the ohange-Mrs. Travers ecause she likes her drawing-room. 1wenny because she likes her bedroom etter; the girl has recovered her roses nd her spirits, and has forgotten, or she has forgotten that after oon's confidence to Roger Danvers on he tennis ground-perhaps this is only ecause the major is "Sir Roger now the old uncle in England having con- iderately died "by last mail"--and eems little strange at first But is biding his time--the colonel novvs his secret-and the coloneIS laikV