The Banshee

ossess three-a friendly, an unfriendly, and a neutral one. A case of the two Banshees resulting in a dual Banshee haunting was told me quite recently by a man whom I met in Pari

cautious; and yet, apart from their vocation which was the apparent link between them, they possessed one characteristic in common-they both adored pretty women. The high brow and extreme feminist with

ulevard Montparnasse, and turned into a new restaurant close to the Boulevard Raspail. This place, too, was very full,

end, after they had been seated a few minutes,

never once left the girl's face, responded. "

mewhat critically. "But I don't

with another; and he averaged at least two or three love cases a year. But to Menzies this latest affair was annoying; he knew that when O'Hara lost his heart he generally lost his head too, and could never talk or think on

, in spite of the lupine expression about the mouth, there was some excuse this time for his friend's enthusiasm. The girl was pretty, an al

xpenditure in one way or another, and just now neither he nor O'Hara ha

in a case of this description-blind infatuation that invariably ended with a startling abruptness; only in this instance the infatuation was blinder than ever, and the ending, though sudden, was not usual.

n to meet it was always the same old tale-Gabrielle! Gabriel

wn company, wandered off to Montmartre, and me

watched the evolutions of a more than usually daring vaudeville artiste, "I say, how about that

es articulated. "I hav

She was quite a kiddie when they bagged her, but a kiddie with a mind as old as Brinvillier's in crime and vice-she robbed and all but murdered her own mother for a few louis, besides forging cheques and stealing wholesale from shops and hotels. They say she was in with all the worst crooks in Europ

er to me,"

aved golden hair; peculiarly long eyes-rather too intensely blue and far apart for my li

hat's the girl he calls Gabrielle Delacourt. I was wi

as no

the tip. If he's seen about with her he'll be suspected by the police. Besides, she is sure to commit some crime-for a girl with that kind of face

his place to-night, though there's no knowing when he'll

ned, was unlocked, but he was out. Menzies went in, and, entering the little room which served as a parlour, dining-room, and study combined, threw himself into an armchair and lit a cigarette. He did not bother to light up as it

ide, and, thinking it was O'Hara, he c

at made Menzies jump up at once and angrily demand who was there. No one replying, he went to the room door, and

ho are you, and what t

lled skin, and obliquely set pale eyes that gleamed banefully as they met Menzies' horrified stare. A disordered mass of matted yellow hair crowned her head and descended half-way to her shoulders, revealing, however

solutely hellish that he would have uttered a prayer and bid it begone, had not his words died in his throat so that he could not articulate a sound. He then tried to

in the lower part of the building, and then ascending the stone staircase leading to this flat, the old woman disappeared, apparently amalgam

s that you?" he be

es stuttered, his

nest little colleen I've ever come across, has told me she will marry me. Ye gods, I shall go off my head with joy; go star

hy don't you congratu

sort of girl you will always care about or who will always care about you. You haven't known her very long, and most women

rmonising. I have made up my mind to marry Ga

e, or anything about t

a lau

ain, only as it happens, they don't affect the question at all, because they are both dead. Gabrielle is an orphan-quite on her own-so I am perfectly safe as far as that goes. No pompous papa to consult, no cant

subject, just then at all events, Menzies changed the co

nce became

h. A hideous hag with a shock head of tow-coloured hair, who stood on the staircase laughing devilishly, and then, all at once, vanished. She is known as the bad Banshee to distinguish her fr

ind, Menzies now bid his fri

ed, and Menzies gathered that there had been occasional differences of opinion between his friend and Gabrielle, and that the affair was not running quite as smoothly as it might. Gabrielle had a great many admirers, one of them very rich, and O'Hara was obviously very much annoyed at the attentions they had been bestowing on his fiancée, and at the manner in whi

they were, and was only brought back to earth by the whistle and shriek of a train, which made

Hara they had better turn back. They were then close beside a clump of bushes and a very lofty pine tree

tree?" he remarked, poin

hing the matter with-the tree's all right, quite all right-it's you. What on earth

cult though he was, as a rule, to please, realised it was lovely, far more lovely, so he declared afterwards, than any woman's face he had ever gazed upon. The eyes particularly impressed him, for, although in the darkness he could not tell their colour, he could see that they were of an extremely beautiful shape and setting, a

Hara, who was getting tired at his long absence, called out, whereupon the girl at once vanished, uttering, as she melted away in the background, in the same inexplicable manner as the old woman had done, such an awful, harrowing, wailing shriek, that it seemed to fill the whole air, and to linger on for an eternity. Thoroughly terrified, Menzies, as soon as his scattered senses could coll

sed after some old-time Irish custom, in a loose flowing green mantle-only of course you couldn't see the colour-with head and feet bare. But it's odd abo

, and now I've seen and heard two, within the short space of three weeks, and all because of you, because you're Irish. No thanks. None of your Banshees for me

o unsubstantial a thing as the Banshee. Let's hurry up and have a b

ns that haunt our memory to the greatest extent in after days. The rest of the evening passed quit

e were some doubts expressed as to the exact manner in which he had met his death, it was officially

tely in that neighbourhood, the townspeople declared they would make a very severe example of the culprit, and hang him, right away, on the scene of his diabolical outrage. Menzies, who had never witnessed anything of the kind before, and was, of course, anxious for copy, took good care to be present. He stood quite close to the handcuffed man, and caught every word of the confess

death from drowning in the Seine. What really happened, so the young desperado said, was this. M. O'Hara was madly in love with Marie Diblanc, who was posing to him as Gabrielle Delacourt, an innocent young girl from the country, when she

se, to smuggle me in, and between us we walked off w

one of the restaurants they used to dine at. Anyhow, she got to know of it, and at once resolved to have him put out of the way. It was arr

she eventually agreed to do, and, lying in her arms, he allowed her to press a poison-bag over his mouth, and so put him to death. His body was taken to the Seine that night in a fiacre and dropped in. Fé

article of information he could out of the man, but nothing wou

infinitely worse; worse, a hundred times worse than any Apache man I have ever met. And yet, depr

hat the ghost he had seen outside the fortifications of Monsouris was the good and beautiful Banshee, th