"What is it?" asked Blake, excitedly. "Is the man ill? Has he fainted?"
"Run downstairs," said Yarrow, curtly. "Rouse the porter and get a doctor at once."
The moment Blake had gone, Yarrow took a candle from the card-table, and by the light of it examined once more the body of the dead man. On the throat there was the imprint of a hand—a right hand with the second finger missing. The marks, which were crimson at first, grew gradually fainter.
Some years afterwards, in Yarrow's presence, a man happened to tell some story of a warning apparition that he himself had investigated.
"And do you believe that?" Yarrow asked.
"The evidence that the apparition was seen—and seen by more than one person—seems to me fairly conclusive in this case."
"That is all very well. I will grant you the apparition if you like. But why speak of it as a warning? If such appearances take place, it still seems to me absurd and disproportionate to suppose that they do so in order to warn us, or help us, or hinder us, or anything of the kind. They appear for their own unfathomable reasons only. If they seem to forbid one thing or command another, that also is for their own purpose. I have an experience of my own which would tend to show that."