Putting them back in my desk, I settled myself into a serious contemplation of the one fact which seemed to give a partial if not wholly satisfactory explanation of Mrs.Packard's peculiar conduct during the last two weeks--her belief that she had been visited by a specter of an unholy, threatening aspect.
That it was a belief and nothing more seemed sufficiently clear to me in the cold-blooded analysis to which I now subjected the whole matter.
Phantoms have no place in the economy of nature.

That Mrs.Packard thought herself the victim of one was simply a proof of how deeply, though perhaps unconsciously, she had been affected by the traditions of the house.

Such sensitiveness in a mind naturally firm and uncommonly well poised, called for attention.

Yet a physician had asserted that he could do nothing for her.

Granting that he was mistaken, would an interference of so direct and unmistakable a character be wise in the present highly strung condition of her nerves?
I doubted it.