"Wha-a-at?" roared Willis.
"It is just as I have said," replied Mrs. Barrows, with a silvery laugh. "They are all great friends of my husband's, and one night last winter he dined them at our house, and who do you suppose walked in first?"
"Madame Blavatsky's ghost?" suggested Willis, with a grin.
"Not quite," returned Mrs. Barrows. "But the horrible stranger of the horse-car; and, do you know, he recalled the whole thing to my mind, assuring me that he and the others had projected their astral bodies over to New York for a week, and had a magnificent time unperceived by all save myself, who was unconsciously psychic, and so able to perceive them in their invisible forms."
"It was a mean trick on me, Mrs. Barrows," said Willis, ruefully, as soon as he had recovered sufficiently from his surprise to speak.
"Oh no," she replied, with a repetition of her charming laugh, which rearoused in Willis's breast all the regrets of a lost cause. "They didn't intend it especially for you, anyhow."
"Well," said Willis, "I think they did. They were friends of your husband's, and they wanted to ruin me."
"Ruin you? And why should the friends of Mr. Barrows have wished to do that?" asked Mrs. Barrows, in astonishment.
"Because," began Willis, slowly and softly—"because they probably knew that from the moment I met you, I—But that is a story with a disagreeable climax, Mrs. Barrows, so I shall not tell it. How do you like Boston?"