Yet the place was all light and charm, gay with flowers and landscape pictures, in short, lacking any sombre note.
Gathered at its far end where the bow window overlooked the sparkling lake, were three or four people, all elderly.

Instantly one of these riveted his attention.

She was stout, having her grey hair drawn back from a massive forehead, beneath which shone piercing black eyes.

Her rather ungainly figure was clothed in what he thought an ugly green dress, and she wore a necklet of emeralds in an old-fashioned setting, which he also thought ugly but striking.

From the moment that he entered the doorway at the far end of that long saloon, he felt those black eyes fixed upon him, and was painfully aware of their owner's presence, so much so, that in a whisper, he asked her name of Miss Ogilvy.
"Oh!" she answered, "that is Madame Riennes, the noted mesmerist and medium." "Indeed," said Godfrey in a vague voice, for he did not quite understand what was meant by this description.
Also there was a thin, elderly American gentleman to whom Godfrey was introduced, named Colonel Josiah Smith, and a big, blond Dane, who talked English with a German accent, called Professor Petersen.