"My father was silent a moment.
"'You felt it then,' he said.
"'Let's get back to the dining-room,' my father urged.
"Just as we got up to the house door (not the library door which opened on the path), I saw, as I thought, a figure move in the bushes near the library. Perhaps it would be better to describe it as a shadow ... but I could swear that it was of a greenish colour. For one moment, from sheer terror of the unseen, I stood frozen to the doorstep, and then my father touched my arm and we walked in together.
"That evening, my friend Price, after his wont, dropped in. I had just run the car round to the front door and was about to run into the village to bring the vicar back to stay with us over the week-end—besides I badly wanted to get away from those infernal gusts of depression that swept the place. I did not scruple to keep to my arrangements and told Price to make himself comfortable in the library till my return. 'You'll find cigars, spirits—and the spirit,' I said jokingly. He nodded and laughed, and I jumped into the car, and quickly put a mile between myself and—the bronze statue, for I was convinced that Albertus of Cologne was connected in some unearthly way with the face of Fear that often turned full on me.
"A half-hour afterwards I had pulled up at the vicarage, and was hanging on to the bell which gave forth a mighty clamour. I was impatient to get inside for a moment and behold the good genial face of the vicar. Somehow, wherever the vicar went, he had a wonderful way of cheering things up; his presence diffused an atmosphere of merriment. The door suddenly opened and I was face to face with him:
"'My dear boy,' cried the vicar, 'I am glad to see you.'
"Then he stared at me in amazement. 'What have you done to yourself? You have aged years since I saw you last week.'
"'Ah, I have things to tell you,' I said, 'Things that will make you think I am off my head, but I shall convince you——'