第26章 MRS. ZANT AND THE GHOST.(26)

Good-by. God bless you."

He held out his hand: a hand with a smooth s urface and a tawny color, that fervently squeezed the fingers of a departing friend.

"Is that man a scoundrel?" was Mr. Rayburn's first thought, after he had left the hotel. His moral sense set all hesitation at rest--and answered: "You're a fool if you doubt it."V.

DISTURBED by presentiments, Mr. Rayburn returned to his house on foot, by way of trying what exercise would do toward composing his mind.

The experiment failed. He went upstairs and played with Lucy; he drank an extra glass of wine at dinner; he took the child and her governess to a circus in the evening; he ate a little supper, fortified by another glass of wine, before he went to bed--and still those vague forebodings of evil persisted in torturing him.

Looking back through his past life, he asked himself if any woman (his late wife of course excepted!) had ever taken the predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had assumed--without any discernible reason to account for it? If he had ventured to answer his own question, the reply would have been: Never!