"I'll step down to the cellar and get a fresh bottle of it. That one on the sideboard hasn't got two man's size drinks left in it. I'll be back in a minute and then we'll drink to spooks. Especially to spooks that come back and apologise."
With a chuckle at his own odd conceit, he vanished cellarward. As the door closed behind him, Kathrien came in from the dining-room, where evidently she had been awaiting a chance for a word alone with McPherson.
"Doctor," she asked almost breathlessly, "do you really believe the dead can come back?"
"Why not?" demanded McPherson, beginning to bristle for a new argument. "Why shouldn't they?"
"But—you mean to say you could come back to this room if you were dead, and I could see you?"
"You might not see me. I don't say you could. But I could come back."
"And—and could you talk to me?"
"I think so."
"But, could I hear you?"
"That I don't know. You see, that's what we gropers after the light are trying to make possible. Hello!" he interrupted himself, in a none too pleased whisper. "Here are some people that can talk and that one can't help hearing!"