“But, Dick, what was the meaning of it?”
“Who knows! When I touched him on the heel perhaps he may have thought it was a devil seizing him, and his imagination did the rest. Mac thinks, or, at least, he once thought—”
“Yes?”
“That there was something developing in the wood, something bad; that Campanula’s ghost was wandering in the wood; that when I made the mark I did inside the circle, the bad thing was flung out of the developing medium and Campanula’s ghost sucked into it, and so she became materialized.”
“And the bad thing went for the juggler man?”
“I never heard anything half so horrible, if it’s true.”
“It’s true enough. I was forgetting it almost, but I had a horrid dream to-day that brought it all back. I was sitting in the garden smoking and I dropped off to sleep; and I heard the sound of that beast’s pipe, and I saw the place on the Nikko road, and there was a child amongst the flowers. Then a frightful bird came along and was going to attack the child, and I awoke—it was just before you came.”
“Dick, what was the mark you made on the road?”
“The sign of the cross,” said Leslie.