"Had you ever anything to do with people who believe that the dead can return to speak to us, or appear to us?"
She raised her head and looked at him with interest.
"I once knew a man," continued Durgan, "who believed in such things, who saw such visions."
"Do you mean the man called Charlton Beardsley?"
Durgan was much surprised by hearing the name of his wife's protégé from such a source. "I should not have supposed that you had ever even heard his name. When he came to this country you must have been at school."
"I had just left school. Tell me what he was like. Was he bad or good?"
"I thought him simple, and much mistaken."
"Was he a wicked man?"
"I did not think him so then; I have not seen him since."