Evening star., 1921-09-04
The Invisible Ghost
By Pierre Mile.

volved. 1 couldn't sleep in that room.
That was all. felt at once fright
ened and exasperated. Oh. SO exas-
perated,
II have told you that we English
people have no imagination. I came
must be something the matter with
the gas or that the plumbing gave off
poisonous exhalations. 1 spoke of
this to my friends husband. He an
swered that everything was in per-
F, feet order; that all the plumbing had
| been renewed under his own super
vision before he signed the lease. He
was the sort of man to take the great
est pains about such things. 1 have
never seen an Englishman who was
more English. He had even less i'm
agination than I had. Nevertheless.
the atmosphere of that house was hos
tile. I can't find any other word for
it. Everybody got out of temper
troll of my nerves. The husband. SO
calm. SO perfectly Indifferent to every
1 thing but the sheer materialities Of
life, became insupportable and insult
ing. His wife, well brought up. re-
served. restrained in speech and ges-
ture. seemed like an entirely different
person. They couldn't keep their
servants. 1t was terrible.
Il began to think that some tragedy
had occurred under this roof. I ques-
4 tAouCu Tic HuSuduu ne tOlu me, With
| his normal precision and GOODNESS.
that the house had belonged to a
| colonial who had had the billiard
| room built on. being extremely fond
OF billiards / never could find out
anything else except that the colonial
had come to a bad end. In the mind
of my conventional host this could
| cover the worst denominations and the
| most shocking adventures. or 1t could
mean simply that the preceding occu-
L 40 nn1 fv, a.
delirium tremens one evening after
he had drunk too much whisky. And
it was all the same to his successor.
1t may be that he didn't know any
more than he had told me. These
stories had come to him when he leas-
ed the house and he hadn't had curios-
ity enough to investigate them. AS
for me, L was girl too correctly
brought up in the old English manner
| to press him further.
HDONT believe that I thought for
moment of revealing to him
! what I suspected. I had a present.
! ment. But what? I should have been
| was as careful as all the world about
me to be like all the world. II had
| exposed to him the idea that lurked in
the back of my head he would GER
tainly have advised my father to take
me to a specialist in mental ailments.
! Without rejecting on the facts he re-
| turned home each day in excellent
humor, only to become Immediately
! furious and miserable, encountering
nothing but fury and unreasonable
| ness. He never sought to establish the
| slightest connection between this ex-
ceptional state of things and the
house. which no one entered without
losing his balance.
AFTER a few years he and his wife
saw themselves abandoned by all their
friends. drew away. l couldn't stand
their relatives, werG 80 entirely
| alone, ana then. ..nmursd toSa:S-.
| with servants who were continually
| changing. they Quarreled with each
other and separated. The most curious
thing is that the wife, once she was
out of that house. became again what
she had been before. very gentle and
even in temper. The last time the
husband crossed the door sill 1t was to
enter an asylum. He was mad-abso-
lutely mad"
But" 1 asked. what about the
colonial? Who was he? What did he
do? How did he der
II have told you everything know
Sometimes when i was in my bed
| room, shaking in all my limbs and
my brains shot through with thoughts
of murder. imagined that he had
hanged himself there. Then I hated
him with all my heart. I said to my
self: why didn't he do 1t somewhere
elssr And ! stiH hate him."