Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/56

56 I wish I could remember the words of the verse but it had something about "law" in it and that is all I can remember.

This may have been the same Presence who made me carry Tony's photograph and place it on the bed. He went back to the desk, hunted there for another old photograph I had of Tony, found it and with a chuckle of delight, carried it into my bedroom and placed it on my dressing-table. Evidently he was quite decided that Tony was to be in evidence.

He stood too, before the photos of my relations and friends on the mantelpiece and piano, thoughtfully looking at them. I asked him what he predicted of their future. He forecasted something for each and told their characters fairly well.

How long he stayed or what he was there for unless it was to show me he was determined that I was to fall desperately in love with Tony and to marry him, I don't know. He went with me to a picture-show one day, and I know he was kind-hearted for I found that whenever the war pictures came on and there was suffering he shook his old head and let it droop as if unable to bear the sight. But when a funny old Turk came on with a queer American beard and huge, impossible, unaccountable head-dress, I found his eyes attracted at once to him, and a humorous twinkle in them.

This day it was that I seemed to be conscious of him carrying my suitcase for me as if in delighted amusement, a kind of chuckle—at the importance of the matter—And when I arrived home he simply set it in my armchair, opened it, and then shook and bobbed his old head at it, with chuckles of amusement. Very rude and impertinent, I told him.

This may or may not have been the same Presence as the other—there were so many. Sometimes I knew by their ways, but not always and they never stayed long.

Why it was I don't know but I got it into my head that one was connected with Tony. I remembered that when first I met him Tony had told me he had been once to a crystal gazer and she had said that she saw him in a graveyard and someone bending over him. He said he knew it must be his grandfather and that he was taking care of him.

The strange part was that Tony really believed these things. He spoke then as if he knew it was true. He had always believed in the Occult and I, who had never believed in it and counted myself as a materialist had been sent these experiences.

So as it was not Tony the idea came to me that perhaps it was his grandfather's spirit.