But of course he was far, far happiest when she came alone.
Almost from the first moment there had been a kind of instinctive intimacy between them, and very soon she had learnt to rely on him--even to take his advice about little things--and to come to him with all her troubles.
Bubbles Dunster had already been what Donnington in his own mind called "deeply bitten" with spiritualism before they had met; yet he had known her for some considerable time before she had allowed him to know it.
Even now she tried, ineffectually, to keep him outside all that concerned that part of her life.

But, as he once had told her with more emotion than he generally betrayed, he would have followed her down to hell itself.
There came a cloud over his honest face as he thought of what had happened this very evening.

And yet, and yet he had to admit that even now he could never make up his mind--he never knew, that is, how far what took place was due to a supernatural agency, or how much to Bubbles' uncanny quickness and cleverness.
What was more strange, considering how well he knew her, Donnington did not really know how much she herself believed in it all.

As a rule--probably because she knew how anxious and troubled he felt about the matter--Bubbles would very seldom discuss with him any of the strange happenings in which she was so absorbed.

And yet, now and again, almost as if in spite of herself, she would ask him if he would care to come to a seance, or invite him to witness an exceptionally remarkable manifestation at some psychic friend's house.
It had early become impossible for him, apart from everything else, to accept the easy "all rot" theory, for Bubbles' occult gifts were really very remarkable and striking.