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Annals of Mathematics 184 (2016), 1–262
http://dx.doi.org/10.4007/annals.2016.184.1.1
On the nonexistence of elements of

Kervaire invariant one
By M. A. Hill, M. J. Hopkins, and D. C. Ravenel
Dedicated to Mark Mahowald
Abstract
We show that the Kervaire invariant one elements θj ∈ π2j+1 −2 S 0 exist

only for j ≤ 6. By Browder’s Theorem, this means that smooth framed
manifolds of Kervaire invariant one exist only in dimensions 2, 6, 14, 30,
62, and possibly 126. Except for dimension 126 this resolves a longstanding
problem in algebraic topology.
Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Equivariant stable homotopy theory 10
3. Mackey functors, homology and homotopy 42
4. The slice filtration 52
5. The complex cobordism spectrum 75
6. The Slice Theorem and the Reduction Theorem 89
7. The Reduction Theorem 94
8. The Gap Theorem 103
9. The Periodicity Theorem 104
10. The Homotopy Fixed Point Theorem 118
11. The Detection Theorem 120
Appendix A. The category of equivariant orthogonal spectra 139
Appendix B. Homotopy theory of equivariant orthogonal spectra 168
References 256
M. A. Hill was partially supported by NSF grants DMS-0905160, DMS-1307896 and the
Sloan foundation.
M. J. Hopkins was partially supported the NSF grant DMS-0906194.
D. C. Ravenel was partially supported by the NSF grants DMS-1307896 and DMS-
0901560.
All three authors received support from the DARPA grants HR0011-10-1-0054-
DOD35CAP and FA9550-07-1-0555.
c 2016 Department of Mathematics, Princeton University.
1
2 M. A. HILL, M. J. HOPKINS, and D. C. RAVENEL
1. Introduction
The existence of smooth framed manifolds of Kervaire invariant one is
one of the oldest unresolved issues in differential and algebraic topology. The
question originated in the work of Pontryagin in the 1930’s. It took a definitive
form in the paper [43] of Kervaire in which he constructed a combinatorial 10-
manifold with no smooth structure, and in the work of Kervaire-Milnor [44]
on h-cobordism classes of manifolds homeomorphic to a sphere. The question
was connected to homotopy theory by Browder in his fundamental paper [13],
where he showed that smooth framed manifolds of Kervaire invariant one exist
only in dimensions of the form (2j+1 − 2) and that a manifold exists in that
dimension if and only if the class
2,2j+1
h2j ∈ ExtA (Z/2, Z/2)
in the E2 -term of the classical Adams spectral represents an element
θj ∈ π2j+1 −2 S 0
in the stable homotopy groups of spheres. The classes h2j for j ≤ 3 represent
the squares of the Hopf maps. The element θ4 ∈ π30 S 0 had been observed
in existing computations [54], [59], [62], and was constructed explicitly as a
framed manifold by Jones [41]. The element θ5 ∈ π60 S 0 was constructed by
Barratt-Mahowald and Barratt-Jones-Mahowald; see [9] and the discussion
therein.
The purpose of this paper is to prove the following theorem
2,2 j+1
Theorem 1.1. For j ≥ 7, the class h2j ∈ ExtA (Z/2, Z/2) does not
represent an element of the stable homotopy groups of spheres. In other words,
the Kervaire invariant elements θj do not exist for j ≥ 7.
Smooth framed manifolds of Kervaire invariant one therefore exist only
in dimensions 2, 6, 14, 30, 62, and possibly 126. At the time of writing, our
methods still leave open the existence of θ6 .
Many open issues in algebraic and differential topology depend on knowing
whether or not the Kervaire invariant one elements θj exist for j ≥ 6. The
following results represent some of the issues now settled by Theorem 1.1. In
the statements, the phrase “exceptional dimensions” refers to the dimensions
2, 6, 14, 30, 62, and 126. In all cases the situation in the dimension 126 is
unresolved. By Browder’s work [13] the results listed below were known when
the dimension in question was not 2 less than a power of 2. Modulo Browder’s
result [13] the reduction of the statements to Theorem 1.1 can be found in the
references cited.
Theorem 1.2 ([44], [48]). Except in the six exceptional dimensions, every
stably framed smooth manifold is framed cobordant to a homotopy sphere.
KERVAIRE INVARIANT ONE 3
In the first five of the exceptional dimensions it is known that not ev-
ery stably framed manifold is framed cobordant to a homotopy sphere. The
situation is unresolved in dimension 126.
Theorem 1.3 ([44]). Let M m be the manifold with boundary constructed
by plumbing together two copies of the unit tangent bundle to S 2k+1 (so m =
4k + 2), and set Σm−1 = ∂M m . Unless m is one of the six exceptional dimen-
sions, the space M m /Σm−1 is a triangulable manifold that does not admit any
smooth structure, and the manifold Σm−1 (the Kervaire sphere) is homeomor-
phic but not diffeomorphic to S m−1 .
In the first five of the exceptional cases, the Kervaire sphere is known to
be diffeomorphic to the ordinary sphere, and the Kervaire manifold can be
smoothed.
Theorem 1.4 ([44], [48]). Let Θn be the group of h-cobordism classes of
homotopy n-spheres. Unless (4k + 2) is one of the six exceptional dimensions,
Θ4k+2 ≈ π4k+2 S 0
and
|Θ4k+1 | = ak π4k+1 S 0 ,
where ak is 1 if k is even, and 2 if k is odd.
Theorem 1.5 ([8]). Unless n is 1, or one of the six exceptional dimen-
sions, the Whitehead square [ιn+1 , ιn+1 ] ∈ π2n+1 S n+1 is not divisible by 2.
1.1. Outline of the argument. Our proof builds on the strategy used by
the third author in [72] and on the homotopy theoretic refinement developed
by the second author and Haynes Miller (see [75]).
We construct a multiplicative cohomology theory Ω and establish the fol-
lowing results.
Theorem 1.6 (The Detection Theorem). If θj ∈ π2j+1 −2 S 0 is an ele-
ment of Kervaire invariant 1, and j > 2, then the “Hurewicz ” image of θj in
j+1
Ω2−2 (pt) is nonzero.
Theorem 1.7 (The Periodicity Theorem). The cohomology theory Ω is
256-fold periodic: For all X,
Ω∗ (X) ≈ Ω∗+256 (X).
Theorem 1.8 (The Gap Theorem). The groups Ωi (pt) are zero for 0 <
i < 4.
These three results easily imply Theorem 1.1. The Periodicity Theorem
and the Gap Theorem imply that the groups Ωi (pt) are zero for i ≡ 2 mod 256.
By the Detection Theorem, if θj exists, it has a nonzero Hurewicz image in

j+1
Ω2−2 (pt). But this latter group is zero if j ≥ 7.
1.2. The cohomology theory Ω. Write Cn for the cyclic group of order n.
Our cohomology theory Ω is part of a pair (Ω, ΩO ) analogous to the orthogonal
and unitary K-theory spectra KO and KU . The role of complex conjugation
on KU is played by an action of C8 on ΩO , and Ω arises as its fixed points. It
is better to think of ΩO as generalizing Atiyah’s C2 -equivariant KR -theory [7],
and in fact ΩO is constructed from the corresponding real bordism spectrum,
as we now describe.
Let M UR be the C2 -equivariant real bordism spectrum of Landweber [45]
and Fujii [26]. Roughly speaking one can think of M UR as describing the
cobordism theory of real manifolds, which are stably almost complex manifolds
equipped with a conjugate linear action of C2 , such as the space of complex
points of a smooth variety defined over R. A real manifold of real dimension
2n determines a homotopy class of maps
S nρ2 → M UR ,
where nρ2 is the direct sum of n copies of the real regular representation of
C2 , and S nρ2 is its one point compactification.
Write
M U ((C8 )) = M UR ∧ M UR ∧ M UR ∧ M UR
for the C8 -equivariant spectrum gotten by smashing four copies of M UR to-
gether and letting C8 act by
¯ a, b, c).
(a, b, c, d) 7→ (d,
Very roughly speaking, M U ((C8 )) can be thought of as the cobordism theory

of stably almost manifolds equipped with a C8 -action, with the property that
the restriction of the action to C2 ⊂ C8 determines a real structure. If M is a
real manifold, f then M × M × M × M with the C8 -action
¯ a, b, c)
(a, b, c, d) 7→ (d,
is an example. A suitable C8 -manifold M of real dimension 8n determines a

homotopy class of maps
S nρ8 → M U ((C8 )) ,
where nρ8 is the direct sum of n copies of the real regular representation of
C8 , and S nρ8 is its one point compactification.
To define Ω we invert an equivariant analogue
D : S `ρ8 → M U ((C8 ))
of the Bott periodicity class and form the C8 -equivariant spectrum ΩO =

D−1 M U ((C8 )) . (In fact ` works out to be 19.) The cohomology theory Ω is
defined to be the homotopy fixed point spectrum of the C8 -action on ΩO .
There is some flexibility in the choice of D, but it needs to be chosen in
order that the Periodicity Theorem holds, and in order that the map from
the fixed point spectrum of ΩO to the homotopy fixed point spectrum be a
weak equivalence. It also needs to be chosen in such a way that the Detection
Theorem is preserved (see Remark 11.14). That such an D can be chosen with
these properties is a relatively easy fact, albeit mildly technical. It is specified
in Corollary 9.21. It can be described in the form M × M × M × M for a
suitable real manifold M , though we do not do so.
1.3. The Detection Theorem. Since the nonequivariant spectrum ΩO un-
derlying ΩO is complex orientable, the inclusion of the unit S 0 → Ω induces a
map
Exts,t
M U∗ M U (M U∗ , M U ∗ )
=⇒ πt−s S 0

H s (C8 ; πt ΩO ) =⇒ πt−s Ω
from the Adams-Novikov spectral sequence to the C8 homotopy fixed point

spectral sequence for π∗ Ω. In Section 11.3.3 we give an ad hoc construction of
this spectral sequence, conveniently adapted to describing the map of E2 -terms.
It gives the horizontal arrow in the diagram of spectral sequences below:
C8 homotopy
Adams-Novikov / fixed point
spectral sequence
spectral sequence

Classical Adams
spectral sequence.
The Detection Theorem is proved by investigating this diagram and follows

from a purely algebraic result.
Theorem 1.9 (Algebraic Detection Theorem). If
2,2 j+1
x ∈ ExtM U∗ (M U ) (M U∗ , M U∗ )
is any element mapping to h2j in the E2 -term of the classical Adams spectral
sequence, and j > 2, then the image of x in H 2 (C8 ; π2j+1 ΩO ) is nonzero.
The restriction j > 2 is not actually necessary, but the other values of j
require separate arguments. Since we do not need them, we have chosen to
leave them to the interested reader.
To deduce the Detection Theorem from the Algebraic Detection Theorem
j+1
suppose that θj : S 2 −2 → S 0 is a map represented by h2j in the classical
Adams spectral sequence. Then θj has Adams filtration 0, 1 or 2 in the Adams-
Novikov spectral sequence, since the Adams filtration can only increase under
a map. Since both
j+1
−2 j+1−1
Ext0,2
M U∗ M U (M U∗ , M U∗ ) and 1,2
ExtM U∗ M U (M U∗ , M U∗ )
are zero, the class θj must be represented in Adams filtration 2 by some element
x that is a permanent cycle. By the Algebraic Detection Theorem, the element
x has a nontrivial image bj ∈ H 2 (C8 ; π2j+1 ΩO ), representing the image of θj in
π2j+1 −2 Ω. If this image is zero, then the class bj must be in the image of the
differential
d2 : H 0 (C8 ; π2j+1 −1 ΩO ) → H 2 (C8 ; π2j+1 ΩO ).
But πodd ΩO = 0, so this cannot happen.

The proof of the Algebraic Detection Theorem is given in Section 11. The
method of proof is similar to that used in [72], where an analogous result is
established at primes greater than 3.
1.4. The slice filtration and the Gap Theorem. While the Detection The-
orem and the Periodicity Theorem involve the homotopy fixed point spectral
sequence for Ω, the Gap Theorem results from studying ΩO as an honest equi-
variant spectrum. What permits the mixing of the two approaches is the
following result, which is part of Theorem 10.8.
Theorem 1.10 (Homotopy Fixed Point Theorem). The map from the
fixed point spectrum of ΩO to the homotopy fixed point spectrum of ΩO is a
weak equivalence.
In particular, for all n, the map
πnC8 ΩO → πn ΩhC
O
8
= πn Ω
is an isomorphism, in which the symbol πnC8 ΩO denotes the group of equivariant

homotopy classes of maps from S n (with the trivial action) to ΩO .
We study the equivariant homotopy type of ΩO using an analogue of the
Postnikov tower. We call this tower the slice tower. Versions of it have ap-
peared in work of Dan Dugger [22], Hopkins-Morel (unpublished), Voevodsky
[81], [82], [83], and Hu-Kriz [37].
The slice tower is defined for any finite group G. For a subgroup K ⊂ G,
let ρK denote its regular representation and write
S(m,
b K) = G+ ∧ S mρK , m ∈ Z.
K
Definition 1.11. The set of slice cells (for G) is

{S(m,
b K), Σ−1 S(m,
b K) | m ∈ Z, K ⊂ G}.
Definition 1.12. A slice cell Sb is free if it is of the form G+ ∧ S m for some
m. An isotropic slice cell is one that is not free.
We define the dimension of a slice cell Sb by
dim S(m,
b K) = m|K|,
dim Σ−1 S(m,
b K) = m|K| − 1.
Finally the slice section P n X is constructed by attaching cones on slice cells
Sb with dim Sb > n to kill all maps Sb → X with dim Sb > n. There is a natural
map
P n X → P n−1 X.
The n-slice of X is defined to be its homotopy fiber Pnn X.
In this way a tower {P n X}, n ∈ Z is associated to each equivariant spec-
trum X. The homotopy colimit holimn P n X is contractible, and holimn P n X
−→ ←−
is just X. The slice spectral sequence for X is the spectral sequence of the slice
tower, relating π∗ Pnn X to π∗ X.
The key technical result of the whole paper is the following.
Theorem 1.13 (The Slice Theorem). The C8 -spectrum Pnn M U ((C8 )) is
contractible if n is odd. If n is even, then Pnn M U ((C8 )) is weakly equivalent
to HZ ∧ W , where HZ is the Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectrum associated to the
constant Mackey functor Z, and W is a wedge of isotropic slice cells of dimen-
sion n.
The Slice Theorem actually holds more generally for the spectra M U ((C2k ))
formed like M U ((C8 )) , using the smash product of 2k−1 copies of M UR . The
more general statement is Theorem 6.1
The Gap Theorem depends on the following result.
Lemma 1.14 (The Cell Lemma). Let G = C2n for some n 6= 0. If Sb is an
isotropic slice cell of even dimension, then the groups πkG HZ ∧ Sb are zero for
−4 < k < 0.
This is an easy explicit computation, and it reduces to the fact that the
orbit space S mρG /G is simply connected, being the suspension of a connected
space.
Since the restriction of ρG to a subgroup K ⊂ G is isomorphic to (|G/K|)ρK ,

there is an equivalence
S mρG ∧ (G+ ∧ S nρK ) ≈ G+ ∧ S (n+m|G/K|)ρK .
K K
It follows that if Sb is a slice cell of dimension d, then for any m, S mρG ∧ Sb

is a slice cell of dimension d + m|G|. Moreover, if Sb is isotropic, then so is
S mρG ∧ S.
b The Cell Lemma and the Slice Theorem then imply that for any m,
the group
πiC8 S mρC8 ∧ M U ((C8 ))
is zero for −4 < i < 0. Since
πiC8 ΩO = lim πi S −m`ρC8 M U ((C8 )) ,
−→
this implies that
πiC8 ΩO = πi Ω = 0
for −4 < i < 0, which is the Gap Theorem.
The Periodicity Theorem is proved with a small amount of computation
in the RO(C8 )-graded slice spectral sequence for ΩO . It makes use of the fact
that ΩO is an equivariant commutative ring spectrum. Using the nilpotence
machinery of [17], [34] instead of explicit computation, it can be shown that the
groups π∗ Ω are periodic with some period that is a power of 2. This would be
enough to show that only finitely many of the θj can exist. Some computation
is necessary to get the actual period stated in the Periodicity Theorem.
All of the results are fairly easy consequences of the Slice Theorem, which
in turn reduces to a single computational fact: that the quotient of M U ((C8 ))
by the analogue of the “Lazard ring” is the Eilenberg-Mac Lane spectrum
HZ associated to the constant Mackey functor Z. We call this the Reduction
Theorem, and its generalization to C2n appears as Theorem 6.5. It is proved
for G = C2 in Hu-Kriz [37], and the analogue in motivic homotopy theory
is the main result of the (unpublished) work of the second author and Morel
mentioned earlier, where it is used to identify the Voevodsky slices of M GL.
It would be very interesting to find a proof of Theorem 6.5 along the lines of
Quillen’s argument in [71].
During the long period between revisions of this paper, Haynes Miller’s
Bourbaki talk on this material has appeared [63]. We refer the reader there
for an incisive overview.
1.5. Summary of the contents. We now turn to a more detailed summary
of the contents of this paper. In Section 2 we recall the basics of equivariant
stable homotopy theory, establish many conventions, and explain some simple
computations. One of our main new constructions, introduced in Section 2.2.3,
is the multiplicative norm functor. We merely state our main results about
the norm, deferring the details of the proofs to the appendices. Another useful
technique, the method of twisted monoid rings, is described in Section 2.4.
It is used in constructing convenient filtrations of rings, and in forming the
quotient of an equivariant commutative ring spectrum by a regular sequence,
in the situation in which the group is acting nontrivially on the sequence.
Section 4 introduces the slice filtration and establishes many of its ba-
sic properties, including the strong convergence of the slice spectral sequence
(Theorem 4.42), and an important result on the distribution of groups in the
E2 -term (Corollary 4.43). The notions of pure spectra, isotropic spectra, and
spectra with cellular slices are introduced in Section 4.6.2. In these terms, the
Slice Theorem states that M U ((C2n )) is both pure and isotropic. Most of the
material of these first sections makes no restriction on the group G.
From Section 5 forward, we restrict attention to the case in which G
is cyclic of order a power of 2, and we localize all spectra at the prime 2.
The spectra M U ((G)) are introduced, and some of the basic properties are
established. The groundwork is laid for the proof of the Slice Theorem. The
Reduction Theorem (Theorem 6.5) is stated in Section 6. The Reduction
Theorem is the backbone of the Slice Theorem and is the only part that is not
“formal” in the sense that it depends on the outcome of certain computations.
The Slice Theorem is also proved in Section 6, assuming that the Reduc-
tion Theorem holds. The proof of the Reduction Theorem is in Section 7. The
Gap Theorem in proved in Section 8, and the Periodicity theorem in Section 9.
The Homotopy Fixed Point Theorem is proved in Section 10 and the Detection
Theorem in Section 11.
The paper concludes with two appendices devoted to foundations of equi-
variant stable homotopy theory. Two factors contribute to the length of this
material. One is simply the wish to make this paper as self-contained as possi-
ble and to collect material central to our investigation in one place. The other
reason is that our methods rely on multiplicative aspects of equivariant stable
homotopy theory that do not appear in the existing literature. Establishing
the basic properties of these structures involve details of the foundations and
cannot be done at the level of user interface. Because of this, a relatively
complete account of equivariant orthogonal spectra is required.
1.6. Acknowledgments. First and foremost the authors would like to thank
Ben Mann and the support of DARPA through the grant number FA9550-07-1-
0555. It was the urging of Ben and the opportunity created by this funding that
brought the authors together in collaboration in the first place. Though the
results described in this paper were an unexpected outcome of our program, it is
safe to say they would not have come into being without Ben’s prodding. As it
became clear that the techniques of equivariant homotopy theory were relevant
to our project, we drew heavily on the paper [37] of Po Hu and Igor Kriz. We
would like to acknowledge a debt of influence to that paper and to thank
the authors for writing it. We were also helped by the thesis of Dan Dugger
(which appears as [22]). The second author would like to thank Dan Dugger,
Marc Levine, Jacob Lurie, and Fabien Morel for several useful conversations.
Early drafts of this manuscript were read by Mark Hovey, Tyler Lawson, and
Peter Landweber, and the authors would like to express their gratitude for
their many detailed comments. We also owe thanks to Haynes Miller for a
very thoughtful and careful reading of our earlier drafts and for his helpful
suggestions for terminology. Thanks are due to Stefan Schwede for sharing
with us his construction of M UR , to Mike Mandell for diligently manning the
hotline for questions about the foundations of equivariant orthogonal spectra,
to Andrew Blumberg for his many valuable comments on the second revision,
and to Anna Marie Bohmann and Emily Riehl for valuable comments on our
description of “working fiberwise.”
Finally, and most importantly, the authors would like to thank Mark
Mahowald for a lifetime of mathematical ideas and inspiration and for many
helpful discussions in the early stages of this project.
2. Equivariant stable homotopy theory

We will work in the category of equivariant orthogonal spectra [56], [55]. In
this section we survey some of the main properties of the theory and establish
some notation. The definitions, proofs, constructions, and other details are
explained in Appendices A and B. The reader is also referred to the books of
tom Dieck [19], [18], and the survey of Greenlees and May [28] for an overview
of equivariant stable homotopy theory and for further references.
We set up the basics of equivariant stable homotopy theory in the frame-
work of homotopical category in the sense of [23]. A homotopical category is a
pair (C, W) consisting of a category C and a collection W of morphisms in C
called weak equivalences containing all identity maps, and satisfying the “two
out of six property” that in the situation
u v w
•−
→•−
→ •, −
→•
if vu and wv are in W, then so are u, v, w, and vwu. Any class W defined

as the collection of morphisms u taken to isomorphisms by some fixed functor
automatically satisfies this property. This holds, in particular, when W consists
of the weak equivalences in a model category structure. In this situation we
will say that the model structure refines the homotopical category structure
and that the homotopical category is completed to a model category structure.
Associated to a homotopical category (C, W) is the homotopy category

ho C and the functor C → ho C, characterized uniquely up to unique isomor-
phism by the following universal property: for every category D, and every
functor F : C → D taking the stable weak equivalences as isomorphisms, there
is a unique functor ho C → D making the diagram
C / ho C
F !
D
commute. See Section B.1 for more on the theory of homotopical categories,
for a description of the issues that arise when doing homotopy theory in a
homotopical category, the techniques for dealing with them, and for an expla-
nation of the notion of left (L) and right (R) derived functors appearing in the
discussion below.
2.1. G-spaces. We begin with unstable equivariant homotopy theory. Let
G be a finite group and T G the topological category of pointed compactly
generated, weak Hausdorff left G-spaces and spaces of equivariant maps. The
category T G is a closed symmetric monoidal category under the smash prod-
uct operation. The tensor unit is the 0-sphere S 0 equipped with the trivial
G-action.
We call a category enriched over T G a G-equivariant topological category.
Since it is closed monoidal, T G may be regarded as enriched over itself. We
denote the enriched category by T G . Thus T G is the G-equivariant topological
category of G-spaces and G-spaces of continuous, not necessarily equivariant
maps, on which G acts by conjugation. There is an isomorphism
T G (X, Y ) = T G (X, Y )G .
See Sections A.1.3 and A.2.1 for further background and discussion.
The homotopy set (group, for n > 0) πnH (X) of a pointed G-space is
defined for H ⊂ G and n ≥ 0 to be the set of H-equivariant homotopy classes
of pointed maps
S n → X.
This is the same as the ordinary homotopy set (group) πn (X H ) of the space
of H fixed-points in X.
A map f : X → Y in T G is a weak equivalence if for all H ⊂ G, the map
X H → Y H of H-fixed point spaces is an ordinary weak equivalence. Equiv-
alently, f : X → Y is a weak equivalence if for all H ⊂ G and all choices of
base point x0 ∈ X H , the induced map πnH (X, x0 ) → πnH (Y, f (x0 )) is an iso-
morphism. Equipped with the weak equivalences, the category underlying T G
becomes a homotopical category. It can be completed to a topological model
category in which a fibration is a map X → Y that for every H ⊂ G is a Serre

fibration on fixed points X H → Y H . The smash product of G-spaces makes
T G into a symmetric monoidal category in the sense of Schwede-Shipley [77,
Def. 3.1] and T G into an enriched model category.
Every pointed G-space is weakly equivalent to a G-CW complex con-
structed inductively from the basepoint by attaching equivariant cells of the
form G/H × Dn along maps from G/H × S n−1 .
We will write both
ho T G (X, Y ) and [X, Y ]G
for the set of maps from X to Y in the homotopy category of T G . When X is
cofibrant and Y is fibrant this can be calculated as the set of homotopy classes
of maps from X to Y in T G
[X, Y ]G = π0 T G (X, Y ) = π0G T G (X, Y ).
We will make frequent use of finite dimensional real orthogonal represen-
tations of G. To keep the terminology simple these will be referred to as
representations of G.
An important role is played by the equivariant spheres S V arising as the
one point compactification of representations V of G. When V is the trivial
representation of dimension n, S V is just the n-sphere S n with the trivial
G-action. We combine these two notations and write
n
S V +n = S V ⊕R .
Associated to S V is the equivariant homotopy set
πVG X = [S V , X]G
defined to be the set of homotopy classes of G-equivariant maps from S V to X.
The set πVG X is a group if dim V > 0 and an abelian group if dim V G > 1,
where V G is the space of G-invariant vectors in V .
Also associated to the sphere S V one has the equivariant suspension
ΣV X = S V ∧ X and the equivariant loop space ΩV X = T G (S V , X).
Now suppose that V1 and V2 are two orthogonal representations of G and
that for each irreducible representation U of G occurring in V1 , one has
(2.1) dim homG (U, V2 ) ≥ dim homG (U, V1 ).
Then one may choose an equivariant linear isometric embedding t : V1 → V2
and form
(2.2) πVG2 −t(V1 ) (X),
in which V2 − t(V1 ) denotes the orthogonal complement of the image of V1 in
V2 . The groups (2.2) form a local system over the Stiefel manifold O(V1 , V2 )G
of equivariant linear isometric embeddings. If instead of (2.1) the one has

V2 > V1 in the sense of Definition 2.3 below, then the Stiefel manifold O(V1 , V2 )
is simply connected and one may define
πVG2 −V2 (X)
to be the group of global sections of this local system. For any t ∈ O(V1 , V2 )G ,
the restriction map gives a canonical isomorphism πVG2 −V2 (X) → πVG2 −t(V1 ) (X).
Definition 2.3. Let V1 and V2 be two nonzero G-representations. We write
V1 < V2 if for every irreducible G-representation U ,
dim homG (U, V1 ) < dim homG (U, V2 ) − 1.

This relation makes the set of G-representations into a (large) partially
ordered set.
We will shortly (Section 2.2.4) be interested in the special case in which
V1 is a trivial representation of dimension k. As above we will write
πVG2 −k (X)
for this group. In this way, for any n ∈ Z, there is a well-defined group
πVG+n (X)
provided dim V G ≥ −n + 2.
2.2. Equivariant stable homotopy theory. There is a choice to be made

when stabilizing equivariant homotopy theory. If one only seeks that fibration
sequences and cofibration sequences become weakly equivalent, then one stabi-
lizes in the usual way, using suspensions by spheres with trivial G-action. But
if one wants to have Spanier-Whitehead duals of finite G-CW complexes, one
needs to stabilize with respect to the spheres S V where V is a finite dimensional
representation of G.
We will do equivariant stable homotopy theory in the category of equivari-
ant orthogonal spectra, equipped with the stable weak equivalences. In order
for this to be considered viable, some properties must be established that
guarantee computations made with equivariant orthogonal spectra ultimately
reduce to computations in ho T G in the expected manner. We therefore begin
by discussing the equivariant Spanier-Whitehead category and formulate six
properties an equivariant stable homotopy should satisfy in order that it faith-
fully extend the Spanier-Whitehead category. These properties are not enough
for all of our purposes, so after establishing them for equivariant orthogonal
spectra we turn the more refined structures (indexed products, coproducts,
and smash products) that we require.
2.2.1. Spanier-Whitehead stabilization. The G-equivariant Spanier-White-

head category SWG is the category whose objects are finite pointed G-CW
complexes and with maps
{X, Y }G = lim[S V ∧ X, S V ∧ Y ]G ,
−→
V
in which the colimit is taken over the partially ordered set of G-representations.
For an informative discussion of this category, the reader is referred to [5].
There is a direct analogue [5], [84] of Spanier-Whitehead duality in SWG ,
in which a finite based G-CW complex embedded in a representation sphere
S V is “V -dual” to the unreduced suspension of its complement.
Example 2.4. Suppose that X is a finite pointed G-set B. If there is an
equivariant embedding B ⊂ S V (for instance, when V is the G-representation
with basis B), then the V -dual of B works out to be S V ∧ B.
If one wants finite G-CW complexes to have actual duals, in the sense of
objects in a symmetric monoidal category, then one must enlarge the category
SWG by formally adding, for each finite G-CW complex Y and each finite
dimensional representation V of G, an object S −V ∧ Y defined by
(2.5) {X, S −V ∧ Y }G = {S V ∧ X, Y }G .
Since {S V ∧ ( − ), Y }G is a functor on SWG , this amounts to simply working
in an enlargement of the Yoneda embedding of SWG . One checks that for
any Z, the map Z → S −V ∧ S V ∧ Z corresponding to the identity map of
S V ∧ Z under (2.5) is an isomorphism and that symmetric monoidal structure
given by the smash product extends to this enlarged category. If X and Y are
V -duals in SWG , then X and S −V ∧ Y are duals in the enlarged equivariant
Spanier-Whitehead category.
Example 2.6. From Example 2.4, B is self-dual in the enlarged equivariant
Spanier-Whitehead category.
As in the nonequivariant case, the equivariant Spanier-Whitehead cate-
gory still suffers the defect that it is also not quite set up for doing stable
homotopy theory. What one wants is a complete closed symmetric monoidal
category SG of G-equivariant spectra, equipped with the structure of a homo-
topical category (or even a Quillen model category), and related to T G by a
pair of adjoint (suspension spectrum and zero space) functors
Σ∞ : T G SG : Ω∞ .
In order to know that computations made in this category reduce in the ex-
pected manner to those in classical stable homotopy theory, one would like this
data to satisfy
SpG ∞ and Ω∞ induce adjoint functors

1 : The functors Σ
LΣ∞ : ho T G ho SG : RΩ∞
on the homotopy categories.

SpG
2 : The symmetric monoidal structure on SG induces a closed symmetric
monoidal structure on the homotopy category ho SG , and the functor
LΣ∞ is symmetric monoidal.
Sp3 : The functor LΣ∞ extends to a fully faithful, symmetric monoidal em-
G
bedding of SWG into ho SG .

SpG V are invertible in ho SG under the smash product so,
4 : The objects S
in particular, the above embedding of SWG extends to an embedding
of the extended Spanier-Whitehead category.
Sp5 : Arbitrary coproducts (denoted ∨) exist in ho SG and can be computed
G
by the formation of wedges. If {Xα } is a collection of objects of SG

and K is a finite G-CW complex, then the map

ho SG (K, Xα ) → ho SG K,
M _
Xα
α α
is an isomorphism.
6 Up to weak equivalence, every object X is presentable in S
SpG G as a
homotopy colimit
· · · → S −Vn ∧ XVn → S −Vn+1 ∧ XVn+1 → · · · ,
in which {Vn } is a fixed increasing sequence of representations eventu-

ally containing every finite dimensional representation of G, and each
XVn is weakly equivalent to an object of the form Σ∞ KVn , with KVn
a G-CW complex.
These properties are not meant to constitute a characterization of SG ,
though they nearly do. The first five insist that SG not be too small, and
the last that it not be too big. Combined, they show that, any computation
one wishes to make in ho SG can, in principle, be reduced to a computation in
SWG .
In all of the common models and, in particular, in equivariant orthog-
onal spectra, the presentation SpG6 is functorial. We call this the canonical
homotopy presentation. It is described in detail in Section B.4.3. For many
purposes one can ignore most of the technical details of equivariant spectra
and just think in terms of the canonical homotopy presentation.
Finally, unless the emphasis is on foundations, we will drop the L and
R and implicitly assume that all of the functors have been derived, unless
otherwise specified.
2.2.2. Equivariant orthogonal spectra. An orthogonal G-spectrum consists

of a collection of pointed G-spaces XV indexed by the finite dimensional or-
thogonal representations V of G, an action of the orthogonal group O(V ) (of
nonequivariant maps) on XV , and for each (not necessarily G-equivariant) or-
thogonal inclusion t : V ⊂ W , a map S W −t(V ) ∧ XV → XW , in which W − t(V )
denotes the orthogonal complement of the image of V in W . These maps are
required to be compatible with the actions of G and O(V ). Maps of equivari-
ant orthogonal spectra are defined in the evident manner. For a more careful
and detailed description, see A.2.4.
Depending on the context, we will refer to orthogonal G-spectra as “equi-
variant orthogonal spectra,” “orthogonal spectra,” “G-spectra,” and some-
times just as “spectra.”
As with G-spaces, there are two useful ways of making the collection
of G-spectra into a category. There is the topological category SG just de-
scribed, and there is the G-equivariant topological category SG of equivariant
¯
orthogonal spectra and G-spaces of nonequivariant maps. Thus for equivariant
orthogonal spectra X and Y , there is an identification
SG (X, Y ) = SG (X, Y )G .
¯
We will use the abbreviated notation S to denote SG when G is the trivial
group.
If V and W are two orthogonal representations of G the same dimension
and O(V, W ) is the G-space of (not necessarily equivariant) orthogonal maps,
then
O(V, W )+ ∧ XV → XW
O(V )
is a G-equivariant homeomorphism. In particular, an orthogonal G-spectrum

X is determined by the XV with V a trivial G-representation. This implies
that the category SG is equivalent to the category of objects in S equipped
with a G-action (Proposition A.19).
Both SG and SG are tensored and cotensored over G-spaces:
¯
(X ∧ K)V = XV ∧ K,
Ä ä
XK V
= (XV )K .
Both categories are complete and cocomplete.
Definition 2.7. The suspension and 0-space functors are defined by
(Σ∞ K)V = S V ∧ K,
Ω∞ X = X{0} ,
where {0} is the zero vector space.
The suspension spectrum functor is left adjoint to the 0-space functor.

One has Σ∞ K = S 0 ∧ K and, more generally, Σ∞ (K ∧ L) = (Σ∞ K) ∧ L. The
functors Σ∞ and Ω∞ may be regarded as topological functors between T G and
SG or as T G -enriched functors relating T G and SG .
¯
For each G-representation V , there is a G-spectrum S −V characterized by
the existence of a functorial equivariant isomorphism
(2.8) SG (S −V , X) ≈ XV
¯
(see Section A.2.4). By the enriched Yoneda Lemma, every equivariant orthog-
onal G-spectrum X is functorially expressed as a reflexive coequalizer
S −W ∧ SG (S −W , S −V ) ∧ XV ⇒ S −V ∧ XV → X.
_ _
(2.9)
V,W
¯ V
We call this the tautological presentation of X.

The category SG is a closed symmetric monoidal category under the smash
product operation. The tensor unit is the sphere spectrum S 0 . There are
canonical identifications
S −V ∧ S −W ≈ S −V ⊕W
and, in fact, the association

V 7→ S −V
is a symmetric monoidal functor from the category of finite dimensional repre-
sentations of G (and isomorphisms) to SG . Because of the tautological presen-
tation, this actually determines the smash product functor (see Section A.2.5).
Regarding the adjoint functors
Σ∞ : T G SG : Ω∞ ,
the left adjoint Σ∞ is symmetric monoidal. We will usually drop the Σ∞

and either not distinguish in notation between the suspension spectrum of a
G-space and the G-space itself, or use S 0 ∧ K.
2.2.3. Change of group and indexed monoidal products. The fact that the
category SG is equivalent to the category of objects in S equipped with a
G-action has an important and useful consequence. It means that if a con-
struction involving spectra happens to produce something with a G-action, it
defines a functor with values in G-spectra. For example, if H ⊂ G is a sub-
group, there is a restriction functor i∗H : SG → SH given by simply restricting
the action to H. This functor has both a left and a right adjoint. The left
adjoint is given by
X 7→ G+ ∧ X
H
and may be written as a “wedge”

_
Xi ,
i∈G/H
where Xi = (Hi )+ ∧ X with Hi ⊂ G the coset indexed by i. Similarly, the

H
right adjoint is given by the H-fixed points of the internal function spectrum
from G to X and may be written as a kind of product
Y Y
X i ≈, Xi .
i∈H\G i∈G/H
where X i = homH (H i , X) and H i is the left H-coset with index i. The

identification of the two expressions is made using the map g 7→ g −1 . There is
also an analogous construction involving the smash product
^
G
NH X= Xi .
i∈G/H
These are special cases of a more general construction.

Suppose that G is a finite group and J is a finite set on which G acts.
Write BJ G for the category with object set J, in which a map from j to j 0 is
an element g ∈ G with g · j = j 0 . We abbreviate this to BG in case J = pt.
Given a functor
X : BJ G → S,
define the indexed wedge, indexed product and indexed smash product of X to
be _ Y ^
Xj , Xj , and Xj
j∈J j∈J j∈J
respectively. The group G acts naturally on the indexed wedge and indexed
smash product, and so they define functors from the category of BJ G-diagrams
of spectra to SG . For more details, see Section A.3.2.
Suppose that H is a subgroup of G and J = G/H. In this case the
inclusion B{e} H → BJ G of the full subcategory containing the identity coset
is an equivalence. The restriction functor and its left Kan extension therefore
give an equivalence of the category of BJ G-diagrams of spectra with SH . Under
this equivalence, the indexed wedge works out to be the functor
G+ ∧ ( − ).
H
The indexed smash product is the norm functor
G
NH : SH → SG ,
sending an H-spectrum X to the G-spectrum
^
Xj .
j∈G/H
Remark 2.10. When the context is clear, we will sometimes abbreviate

G simply to N in order to avoid clustering of symbols.
the NH
The norm distributes over wedges in much the same way as the iterated
smash product. A precise statement of the general “distributive law” appears
in Section A.3.3.
The functor NH G is symmetric monoidal, commutes with sifted colimits,
and so filtered colimits and reflexive coequalizers (Proposition A.53). The fact
that V 7→ S −V is symmetric monoidal implies that
G
G −V
(2.11) NH S = S − indH V ,
where indGH V is the induced representation. From the definition, one also
concludes that for a pointed G-space T ,
Ä ä G
G
NH S −V ∧ T = S − indH V ∧ NH
G
T,
where NH G T is the analogous norm functor on spaces.
The norm first appeared in group cohomology (Evens [25]) and is often
referred to as the “Evens transfer” or the “norm transfer.” The analogue in
stable homotopy theory originates in Greenlees-May [29].
2.2.4. Stable weak equivalences. The inequality of Definition 2.3 gives the
collection of finite dimensional orthogonal G-representations the structure of
a (large) partially ordered set. When V1 is the trivial representation of dimen-
sion k, the condition V2 > V1 means that
(2.12) dim V2G > k + 1,
and instead we will use the abbreviation V2 > k. Using (2.12) we extend this
to all k ∈ Z.
Suppose we are given X ∈ SG , K ∈ T G , and two representations V1 < V2 .
Choose an equivariant isometric embedding t : V1 → V2 , and let W be the
orthogonal complement of t(V1 ) in V2 . Define
(2.13) [S V1 ∧ K, XV1 ]G → [S V2 ∧ K, XV2 ]G
by using the identification S W ∧ S V1 ≈ S V2 and the structure map S W ∧ XV1
→ XV2 to form the composite
[S V1 ∧ K, XV1 ]G → [S W ∧ S V1 ∧ K, S W ∧ XV1 ]G → [S V2 ∧ K, XV2 ]G .
This map depends only on the path component of t in O(V1 , V2 )G , so the
condition V1 < V2 implies that (2.13) is independent of the choice of t.
Definition 2.14. Let X be a G-spectrum and k ∈ Z. For H ⊂ G, the
H-equivariant k th stable homotopy group of X is the group
(2.15) πkH X = lim πVH+k XV ,
−→
V >−k
in which the colimit is taken over the partial ordered set of orthogonal G-repre-
sentations V satisfying V > −k.
The poset of G-representations is a class, not a set, so one must check
that the colimit (2.15) actually exists.
Definition 2.16. An increasing sequence Vn ⊂ Vn+1 ⊂ · · · of finite dimen-
sional representations of G is exhausting if any finite dimensional representation
V of G admits an equivariant embedding in some Vn .
Any exhausting sequence · · · ⊂ Vn ⊂ Vn+1 ⊂ · · · is final in the poset of
G-representations, so the map
lim πVHn +k XVn → lim πVH+k XV
−→n
−→
V >−k
is an isomorphism. This gives the existence of the colimit (2.15) and shows
that πkH X can be computed as
πkH X = lim πVHn +k XVn
−→n
in which · · · ⊂ Vn ⊂ Vn+1 ⊂ · · · is any choice of exhausting sequence.

Definition 2.17. A stable weak equivalence (or just weak equivalence, for
short) is a map X → Y in SG inducing an isomorphism of stable homotopy
groups πkH for all k ∈ Z and H ⊂ G.
Equipped with the stable weak equivalences, the category SG becomes a
homotopical category in the sense of [23], and so both the homotopy category
ho SG and the functor SG → ho SG are defined. As with G-spaces, we will often
employ the notation
[X, Y ]G
for ho SG (X, Y ). See Section B.1 for more on the theory of homotopical cat-
egories and for an explanation of the notion of left (L) and right (R) derived
functors appearing in the discussion below.
2.2.5. Properties SpG G G
1 –Sp6 . We now describe how properties Sp1 –Sp6
G
are verified, deferring most of the technical details to Appendix B. The first
five properties assert things only about the homotopy category and, save the
fact that the symmetric monoidal structure is closed, they can be established
using only the language of homotopical categories.
For SpG ∞
1 , one checks directly from the definition that the functor Σ
preserves weak equivalences between G-spaces with nondegenerate base points,
so that LΣ∞ X can be computed as Σ∞ X if X has a nondegenerate base point,
or as Σ∞ X̃ in general, where X̃ is formed from X by adding a whisker at the
base point. The right derived functor RΩ∞ is given by choosing any exhausting
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anything, but Olivia had had no means of learning her peculiarities,
and so she met the old woman’s complaints in a humble and
apologetic spirit which increased Mrs. Wall’s arrogance.
The entrance hall was low-roofed and square; the walls were
covered with a cheap and commonplace paper, the wainscoting and
the banisters of the broad staircase were of painted wood. This was
the portion of the house which had suffered most during its
decadence. Olivia, examining everything with an eye keen to
discover the good points to be made the most of in her new home,
found that where the paint had worn off the staircase and wainscot
dark oak was revealed underneath, and she rashly uttered an
exclamation of horror at the vandalism of the farm’s late occupants.
“The idea of spoiling beautiful dark oak with this horrid paint! Why,
the people who did it ought to be sent to penal servitude!”
Mrs. Wall was scandalized.
“T’ fowk ’as lived here last liked t’ place clean,” she said, severely.
“It’ll nivver look t’ same again as it did, wi’ a clean white
antimacassar stitched on to ivery cheer, an’ wax flowers under glass
sheades in a’ t’ parlor windows. An’ t’ parlor a’ways as neat as a new
pin, so ye wur afreaid a’most to coom into ’t. Ah, ye meen talk o’ yer
gentlefowk, but they’ll nivver mak’ it look t’ same again!”
Olivia had opened the door to the right, and throwing wide the
shutters of one of the three large windows, revealed a long, low-
ceilinged room, used as the living room by the late farmer’s family,
and having at the further end a wide, high, old-fashioned fireplace,
the mouldings of which had been carefully covered with whitewash,
now smoked-begrimed and worn into dark streaks. The shutters and
the wainscoting, which in this room was breast high upon the walls,
had been treated in the same way. Olivia uttered a groan, and turned
to the door, afraid of uttering more offensive remarks. Then they
went upstairs, and opened the doors of a lot of little meanly papered
bedrooms which formed the upper storey of this part of the house.
Having allowed the new comers to examine these, while she
remained sniffing in the passage, Mrs. Wall shuttled hastily back to
the staircase.
“Stop!” cried Olivia, as the old woman placed one downtrodden shoe
on the second step; “we haven’t seen the other part of the house at
all. Where does this lead to?”
And she peered into a crooked passage which led into the first of the
two older wings.
Mrs. Wall paused with evident reluctance.
“There’s nowt yonder but t’ worst o’ t’ bedrooms; ye’ve seen t’ best,”
she grumbled.
But Olivia was already exploring, followed by Lucy; and the old
woman, with much reluctance, brought up the rear. The passage
was quite dark, and very cold. The tallow dip which Mrs. Wall carried
gave only just enough light to enable the explorers to find the
handles of the doors on the left. One of these Olivia opened, not
without difficulty; for the floor was strewn with lumber of all sorts,
which the last occupier of the farm had not thought worth carrying
away. The walls of this room, which was very small, were panelled
right up to the low ceiling; and the panelling had been whitewashed.
A second chamber in this passage was in a similar condition, except
that the panelling had been torn down from two of the four walls, and
its place supplied by a layer of plaster. Holding up her skirts very
carefully, Olivia stepped across the dusty piles of broken boxes,
damaged fireirons, and odds and ends of torn carpet with which the
floor of this room also was covered, and looked through the dusty
panes of the little window.
“Now you’ve seen a’,” said Mrs. Wall, rather querulously. “An’ t’ lad
downstairs ’ll be wanting to know wheer to put t’ things.”
She was retreating with her candle, when Olivia stopped her again.
“No,” she said, eagerly, “we’ve not seen all. There’s a wing of the
house we have not been into at all; and I can see through the little
window, on this side of it, some curtains and a flower vase with
something still in it. It doesn’t look empty and deserted like the rest. I
must get in there before I go down.”
But Mrs. Wall’s old face had wrinkled up with superstitious terror, and
it was only by force of muscle that the young girl succeeded in
cutting off her retreat.
“Na’,” she said, her voice sinking to a croaking whisper. “I canna tak’
ye in theer. An’—an’ t’ doors are locked, ye see,” she added, eagerly,
as Olivia, still grasping her conductress’ arm, in vain tried the door at
the end of the passage, and one on the left-hand side, at right angles
with it.
“Well, but why are they locked?” asked the young girl, impatiently,
her rich-toned, youthful voice ringing sonorously through the long-
disused passage. “The whole place is ours now, and I have a right to
see into every corner of it.”
“Oh, Miss Olivia, perhaps we’d better go back—go downstairs—for
to-day,” suggested the little maid Lucy, rather timorously behind her.
Mrs. Wall’s nervous tremors were beginning to infect the poor girl,
who was, moreover, very cold, and was longing for some tea. But
her young mistress had at least her fair share of an immovable
British obstinacy. Finding that both doors were firmly locked and that
there was no key to either forthcoming, she flung the whole weight of
her massive and muscular young body against the door on the left,
until the old wood cracked and the rusty nails rattled in the disused
hinges.
“Mercy on us!” exclaimed Sarah Wall, petrified by the audacity of the
young amazon. “Shoo ’ll have t’ owd place aboot our ears!”
“Take the candle, Lucy,” said Olivia, imperiously, perceiving that the
dip was flaring and wobbling in an ominous manner in the old
woman’s trembling fingers.
Lucy obeyed, frightened but curious. Her mistress made two more
vigorous onslaughts upon the door; the first produced a great
creaking and straining; at the second the door gave way on its upper
hinge, so that the girl’s strong hands were able to force the lock with
ease. She turned to the guide in some triumph.
“Now, Mrs. Wall, we’ll unearth your ghost, if there is one. At any rate,
we’ll get to the bottom of your mystery in five minutes.”
But she did not. Pressing on to the end of a very narrow, unlighted
passage in which she now found herself, Olivia came to a second
door; this opened easily and admitted her into a large chamber, the
aspect of which, dimly seen by the fading light which came through a
small square window on her left, filled her brave young spirit with a
sudden sense of dreariness and desolation.
For it was not empty and lumber-strewn, like the rest of the rooms
she had entered. The dark forms of cumbrous, old-fashioned
furniture were discernible in the dusk; the heavy hangings of a huge
four-post mahogany bedstead shook, as a rat, disturbed by the
unwonted intrusion, slid down the curtain and scurried across the
floor. As she stepped slowly forward on the carpet, which was damp
to the tread, and peered to the right and left in the gloom, Olivia
could see strange relics of the room’s last occupant; the withered
remains of what had been a bunch of flowers on a table in front of
the little window; an assortment of Christmas cards and valentines,
all of design now out of date, and all thickly covered with brown dust,
fastened with pins on to the wall on each side of the high mantle-
piece; even a book, a railway novel, with its yellow boards gnawed
by the rats, which she picked up rather timorously from the floor,
where, by this time, it seemed to have acquired a consecrated right
to lie.
Still advancing very slowly, Olivia reached the opposite side of the
room, where her quick eyes had perceived the barred shutters of a
second and much larger window. With some difficulty she removed
the bar, which had grown stiff and rusty, and, drawing back the
heavy shutters, revealed the long, stone-mullioned window, with
diamond panes, which had been such a picturesque feature of the
house from the outside. The thick, untrained ivy obscured one end of
it, but enough light glimmered through the dirt-encrusted panes for
Olivia to be now quite sure of two things of which she felt nearly sure
before—namely, that this was the best bedroom in the house, and
that, for some mysterious reason, this chamber, instead of being
dismantled like the rest, had been allowed to remain for a period of
years almost as its last occupant had left it. Almost, but not quite; for
the bedding had been removed, the covers to the dressing-table and
the gigantic chest of drawers, and the white curtains which had once
hung before the shuttered window.
On the other hand, a host of knicknacks remained to testify to the
sex, the approximate age, and the measure of refinement of the late
owner. More railway novels, all well-worn; flower vases of an
inexpensive kind; two hand mirrors, one broken; a dream book; a
bow of bright ribbon; a handsome cut-glass scent bottle; these
things, among others, were as suggestive as a photograph; while the
fact that this room alone had been studiously left in its original state,
and even furnished in accordance with it, threw a new and more
favorable light on the taste of that mysteriously interesting somebody
whose individuality made itself felt across a lapse of years to the
wondering new comer.
Olivia Denison was not by any means a fanciful girl. She had been
brought up by a step-mother—a mode of education little likely to
produce an unwholesome forcing of the sentimental tendencies. She
was besides too athletic and vigorously healthy to be prone to
superstitious or morbid imaginings. But as she stood straining her
eyes in the fading daylight to take in every detail of the mysterious
room, the panelling, which in this apartment alone was left its own
dark color, seemed to take strange moving patterns as she looked;
the musty, close air seemed to choke her; and faint creakings and
moanings, either in the ancient woodwork or the loose-hanging ivy
outside, grew in her listening ears to a murmur as of a voice trying to
speak, and miserably failing to make itself understood. She was
roused by a shrill cry, and found Lucy, whose fear for her mistress
had overcome her fear of this desolate room, shaking her by the arm
and pulling her towards the door.
“Oh, Miss Olivia, do come out—do come out! You’re going to faint;
I’m sure you are. It’s all this horrid room—this horrid house. Oh, do
come and write, and tell master it’s not a fit place for Christians to
come to, and he’d never prosper if he was to come here, and nor
wouldn’t none of us, I’m positive. Do come, Miss Olivia, there’s a
dear. It’s fit to choke one in here, what with the rats and the damp,
that it is. And if we was to stay here long enough we’d see ghosts, I
know.”
Olivia laughed. No phantom had terrors for her, however strong an
impression half-guessed realities might make upon her youthful
imagination.
“Don’t be afraid, Lucy,” she said, encouragingly. “We’ll soon frighten
the ghosts away by letting a little fresh air into these musty rooms.
Here, help me.”
Half reassured by her resonant voice, the maid accompanied her to
the larger window, still clinging to her arm, but more for
companionship than with the idea of affording support to her
mistress, who had recovered her self-command. Together they
succeeded in throwing open both windows to their full extent, not,
however, accomplishing this without a shriek from Lucy as a great
bird flew out of the hanging ivy and almost flapped against their
faces in his confusion at this unusual disturbance. They both felt a
sense of relief as the keen but fresh outside air blew into the long-
closed room, dispersing the mouldy, musty smell of damp hangings
and decaying wood. Even the old woman, who had stood all this
time in the doorway, apparently engaged in muttering incantations
over her tallow dip, but really transfixed by this audacity of young
blood, drew a long breath as the rush of fresh air reached her, and
gathered courage to ask “what they were after doin’ now?”
“Were ‘after’ ransacking every corner of this old ghost run, turning it
upside down and inside out, and chasing away the last shadow of a
bogey,” answered Olivia, cheerily. “Here’s another room to look into.”
Crossing the room with a light step, she opened the door of the
second of the closed-up apartments. This chamber also had
escaped the dismantling of the rest of the house, but it contained
very little that would have been worth taking away. It was lighted by
three small windows, all much broken, and all hung with limp rags
which had once been muslin curtains, gaily tied up with blue ribbons,
which were now almost colorless with dust and damp. The floor was
covered with matting, which smelt like damp straw, and had evidently
afforded many a meal to the rats now scurrying behind the
woodwork, which in this room was much decayed and in far from
good repair. A plain deal table, from which the cover had been
removed; two limp wicker chairs with ragged cushions; an empty
birdcage; a fanciful wicker kennel for a lapdog; these were nearly all
that were left of the furniture. Olivia inspected everything with eager
but silent interest, and then turned suddenly to Sarah Wall, who had
again followed them as far as the door, preferring even the eerie
passage of the bedroom to solitude outside.
“Who lived in these rooms last?” she asked.
But the candle nearly fell from Mrs. Wall’s hand as, for all answer,
she withdrew into the desolation of the deserted bedroom rather than
face the eager questioner again.
Olivia was not to be put off so easily. She followed precipitately, and,
changing the form of her attack, said—
“How long is it since these rooms were shut up, Mrs. Wall?”
The guide’s eyes shifted about, refusing to meet those of the young
girl.
“Twea year’; same as rest o’ t’ house,” she answered, in a grumbling
tone.
“Only two years! It wasn’t shut up long before the family went away,
then?” said Olivia, incredulously.
“Not as Ah knaws on,” answered Sarah Wall.
Miss Denison hated an untruth with the impetuous loathing of an
honest nature. She would have liked to shake this wretched old
woman, who would not be candid on a subject which could not be of
the slightest importance to her. Perhaps her companion got an
inkling of this inclination, for she turned and beat a hasty retreat
along the narrow passage which led from the bedroom to the body of
the house. Olivia did not at once follow her. With a curious
reluctance, whether reverence for a dead past whose relics she was
disturbing, or fear of some shock which its revelations might bring
her, she scarcely knew, the girl picked up one of the dust-begrimed
novels, and looked at the title page. But there was nothing written on
it. She opened three or four more of the novels with the same result.
By this time it was growing so dark that she had to hasten her
movements for fear that when at last a clue was found she might be
unable to distinguish the letters. Having in vain examined every book
upon the table, she continued to explore until she found, on a small
hanging bookshelf in an obscure corner of the room, a little pile of
devotional works—Bible, hymn book, Bogatsky’s “Golden Treasury,”
a tiny “Daily Portion,” and a prayer book. This last was on the top of
all. As Olivia opened it, there fell to the floor tiny dried scraps of
flowers and fern. Turning to the flyleaf, and carrying the book in
haste to the window, she found these words, written in a round,
school-boy hand—
“Ellen Mitchell, from her affectionate brother Ned.” And a date of
eighteen years back.
Olivia replaced the prayer book on the shelf, and left the old room
without further delay, followed by Lucy, who had remained close at
hand, but discreetly silent, during these investigations.
When they reached the outer end of the passage, Olivia glanced
with some curiosity at the old door she had so roughly broken down,
and as she did so, some letters written in pencil high on the upper
panel caught her eye. With difficulty she made out a date in July ten
years before.
“I wonder,” she thought, “whether that is the date on which the rooms
were locked up. If so, it was eight years before the last people left
the house, I know. And their name was Mitchell. Who can I ask to tell
me the story?”
And, having forgotten cold, fatigue, and hunger in the interest of her
discoveries, Olivia Denison made her way slowly down to the ground
floor again, where she caught Mrs. Wall in the act of slipping out of
the front door.
CHAPTER III.
The estimable Sarah Wall was, as she herself would have said, “not
in the best of tempers” at being intercepted in her proposed flight.
“Ah thowt ye’d got all ye wanted,” she grumbled, as Olivia Denison
followed her out on to the doorstep and asked her where she was
going. “Ah wur goin’ whoam to get a coop o’ tea, for Ah’m fair
clemmed.”
“You thought we’d got all we wanted!” said Olivia, ironically. “Why,
we’ve got nothing at all—not even a chair to sit on. I think, if you
have tea going at your cottage, you might ask us to come and have
some.”
“Hey, that ye might, Sally,” said a gruff voice, which Olivia had now
learnt to recognize as that of a friend.
Turning, she saw Mat Oldshaw, his blushes, if he were still blushing,
invisible in the darkness, standing at the foot of the steps, mounting
guard over the luggage, which he had piled together.
“Oh,” cried the girl, with a sudden change to melting gratitude, “you
haven’t been waiting out here in the cold all this time for us, have
you?”
“Weel, miss,” said Mat, laughing uneasily, and shifting from one
heavy foot to the other, “t’ door was shut, an’ Ah couldn’t get in.”
And, to put an end to conversation, which was an art in which he felt
he did not shine, the young fellow seized the two smallest trunks and
carried them straight into the big farm living room, whistling a lively
tune as he did so. Olivia stood back quite silently while he fetched in
the rest of the luggage in the same way, and then stood looking at it
dubiously by the light of Mrs. Wall’s candle.
“It bean’t naw good onfastenin’ t’ cords,” he said at last, “for they
won’t stay in here. An’ Ah dunno reightly what to be doin’ for ye if yer
goods bean’t coom.”
He went back again to the front door and looked out. Not that he
could see anything of the road, for the huge barn opposite,
completely blocked the view from this point. But he was a good deal
affected by the predicament in which this beautiful lady and her
attendant found themselves, and he was shy of meeting the lady’s
eyes, being without means of comforting her. Suddenly a figure
darted out from the gloom under the barn walls, a strong hand was
laid upon the lad’s arm, and, willy-nilly, he was dragged down the
steps and heartily cuffed before he had recovered from his first
surprise.
“Eh, feyther, what art doin’ now?” he asked, as soon as he had
recovered breath, having speedily recognized the touch of his
parent’s loving hand.
“Eh, thou feaul, thoo teastrill; Ah’ve got tha! Ah know’d wheer thoo’d
got to. This cooms o’ followin’ fowk wha can’t keep off t’ lasses.
Coom whoam; coom tha whoam, and if ivver Ah catch tha again a-
slitherin’ about yon house, Ah’ll turn ye oot o’ ma house, and oot o’
ma farm, as if ye wur nobbut a ploughboy, thet Ah will!”
Mat wriggled and writhed till he got loose from his father’s grasp, and
slinking back a step or two, he called out, not loudly or defiantly, but
with the same rough kindliness which he had shown from the first
towards the friendly girls—
“Now mind, Sally, thou maun mash t’ best coop o’ tea thoo can for t’
leddies.”
John Oldshaw turned round at these words, and addressed the old
woman in a thick and angry voice.
“Sarah Wall, get back to tha whoam an’ tha own business. An’ if thoo
canna keep tha owd fingers oot o’ other fowks’ affairs, tha needna
coom oop oor way o’ Soondays for t’ broaken meat. So now thoo
knaws.”
And, with a jerk of the head to his son to intimate that Mat could go
on in front and he would follow, the farmer stamped slowly and
heavily away down the yard.
His coarse unkindness affected the three women differently. Little
Lucy began to whimper and to sob out indignant maledictions upon
“the ol-ol-old brute;” Mrs. Wall, after dropping half a dozen frightened
curtseys, manifested a great eagerness to go; Olivia drew herself up
and became very stern and grave.
“You need not mind what that man says, Mrs. Wall,” she said, in a
firm quiet voice. “You may be very sure that any kindness you do us
will be amply repaid. And as for the broken meat he talks about, if
you will really lose that by letting us rest a little while in your cottage
and giving us a cup of tea, I can promise you a good dinner every
Sunday while my father lives here.”
But Mrs. Wall was too far timorous and cautious a person to risk the
substantial reality of broken meat on Sundays from the great man of
the village for the flimsy vision of a good dinner from a total stranger.
She thrust her flickering tallow candle into Lucy’s hands, and began
to tie her wispy bonnet strings with a resolute air.
“I’ll leave t’ candle,” she said, as if making a great and generous
concession; “an’ that’s a’ I can do for ye. For I’ve nowt in my place I
could set afore a leddy; an’ as for tea, the bit fire I left will be out by
this time.”
“But I can light your fire again for you, and boil your kettle in two
twos,” burst in Lucy. “And we’ve brought some tea with us.”
Her young mistress put a light hand on her arm.
“Never mind, Lucy,” she said, quietly. “If Mrs. Wall doesn’t care for us
to go to her cottage we will not trouble her.”
As she spoke her eyes brightened, for at the end of the long barn
she descried in the dusk the figure of the gentleman who had come
to their aid that afternoon and then left them with such
unaccountable suddenness. Lucy saw him too, and being more
demonstrative than her mistress, she gave vent to her delight in
words.
“No, Mrs. Wall, ma’am; you needn’t go for to put yourself out, for
there’s better folks than you coming along, that are a deal more
obliging than ever you’d be, and that have some Christian kindness
in them, which is more than can be said for you. Ugh, you grumpy
old woman, you!”
“Hush, Lucy,” said her mistress in gentle rebuke; “the gentleman will
hear you. And I don’t suppose he is coming here at all,” she added,
reluctantly, as the figure they had both so quickly recognized
disappeared again in the gloom.
“What gentleman? What gentleman?” asked the old woman, shrilly.
“How should we know, when we’re strangers here?” retorted Lucy,
who, now, that her tongue was once loosened, was delighted to have
what she afterwards called “a go-in” at their disobliging guide. “But
he was a real gentleman; not like your pig-faced friend in the
corduroy trousers that you’re so mighty civil to; and he wears
knickerbockers and gaiters and a cap over his eyes, if that is
anything you can tell him by.”
Apparently it was, for Sarah gave a step back in horror, and
ejaculated “Mercy on us!” two or three times, as if too much shocked
for further speech.
“What’s the matter?” asked Olivia, rather sharply, remembering the
stranger’s warning that she would hear no good of him from Sarah
Wall, and curious to learn the reason. “If you know who the
gentleman is, tell me his name. And what do you know against him?”
she added, indiscreetly.
Mrs. Wall, though not brilliantly intelligent, had the splendid gift of
reticence where she thought that things might “go round.” She only
shook her head, therefore, and muttered something about getting
herself into trouble and desiring to be allowed to go home.
“Well, just tell me first who he is, then, and you shall go at once,”
said Olivia, persuasively.
The old woman, writhing nervously under the clasp of Miss
Denison’s hand, evidently cast about in her mind for a means of
getting free while committing herself as little as possible. The
reluctant words which at last came out were not very well chosen,
however.
“I’ll tell ye this, then,” she croaked, in a broken whisper, peering
round with her sunken eyes as if to be sure the treasonable
communication she was making was not overheard by the person
concerned. “Yon gentleman, as ye call him, is not fit company for
young ladies. And others have found it oot to their cost—so fowk
say,” she added, hastily. Then, as Olivia released her arm and she
tottered away over the hard ground, she looked back to add, in a
querulous and anxious tone, “But don’t ye tak’ it frae me, mind. I
nobbut told ye what I’ve heerd say.”
Olivia turned back towards the open door of the dreary house,
feeling beyond measure miserable and disconsolate. The dimly seen
figure of her friend of the afternoon had disappeared; the disobliging
old woman who was at least a fellow-creature, was rapidly hobbling
out of sight; while the words which had just, with so much difficulty,
been forced out of her, seemed in the hag’s mouth to have acquired
the chilling significance of a curse. Lucy felt this too, for coming
closer to her mistress she half whispered—
“Oh, Miss Olivia, if there was really such things as witches, I should
believe that old crone was one.”
“Nonsense! Come inside, and let us see what’s to be done.”
“Oh, you’re not going in again—all by ourselves! Oh, miss, just think
of that upstairs room!” wailed the poor girl.
“Now, look here, Lucy, you mustn’t be ridiculous. We’re in a dreadful
plight, and we’ve got to make the best of it. If you give way to silly
fancies instead of doing your best to help me, I shall have to take
you to that inn at the corner and leave you there while I come back
and shift for myself as best I can.”
Lucy, who loved her young mistress, grew sober and good
immediately.
“You know I’ll do what I can, Miss Olivia,” she said, suppressing a
sob of alarm as a dull sound, apparently from the barn opposite,
reached their ears.
Olivia listened. The sound was repeated.
“It sounds like some person chopping wood,” she said, after a
moment’s pause. “I daresay, now the place is uninhabited, the
villagers take what liberties they like with it, and use the barns and
sheds to store their own wood and hay and things in. Now, come in,
and let us undo some of the trunks before the candle goes out.”
With most reluctant feet, but without another word of remonstrance,
Lucy followed her young mistress. Olivia, with resolute steps and a
mouth set with an expression which said to the phantoms of the old
house, “Come on if you dare!” re-entered the hall, and kneeling down
before a trunk which had been placed there, attacked the cord round
it with inexpert but strong fingers. They had got it open, and were
congratulating themselves that in this, the first trunk unpacked, were
candles, tea, and a little spirit lamp, when, suddenly, there fell upon
their ears a noise which even to the brave spirited Olivia was, in a
lonely, empty house, undeniably alarming. It came from the long
living room where most of their luggage lay, and was as of some
heavy body falling with a crash on to the floor.
Olivia sprang to her feet.
“I opened one of the windows,” she said, “and forgot to shut it. Some
one has got in! No, don’t scream!”
She clapped her hand on Lucy’s mouth and reduced the threatened
shriek to a moan; then, the noise having by this time ceased, she
turned, heedless of the maid’s whispered supplications, to the door
of the long room. The lock was stiff with rust and the handle difficult
to turn; so that, perhaps not much against her will, she left the
intruder, if intruder it was, time to escape. But there was no fresh
sound, and the young girl’s brave heart fluttered a little with the fear
that perhaps, on opening the door, she would come face to face with
a defiant marauder. At last the door opened. It was dark by this time;
through the opened shutters of the four windows came only just
enough light to show that the trunks, piled up on the bare floor, had
at least not been removed. The air blew in, very keen and cold,
through the one open window, which was at the other end of the
room, nearest to the fireplace.
“Is anybody there?” asked Olivia, scarcely without a tremor.
Her voice echoed without reply in the desolate department.
She held up the candle and advanced slowly, examining every
gloomy corner. No one was there; no trace of any one having been
there until, as she reached the other end, her glance fell on some
dark object lying close under the open window. At this sight Lucy
could not suppress the long-stifled scream, and it was not until her
mistress pouncing down upon the mysterious thing, revealed the fact
that it was only a couple of logs and a bundle of sticks, neatly tied
together with a piece of string, that she found enough relief from
terror to burst into tears.
“Who’s the benevolent burglar, I wonder,” cried Olivia, her spirits
rising instantly at the discovery of the little anonymous act of
kindness.
She ran to the window and looked out. There was no one to be seen;
but on the window-ledge lay a box of cigar lights.
“The mysterious stranger again!” she said to herself. Then turning to
the maid, said, “Now, Lucy, make a fire as fast as you can. There are
some newspapers with the rugs. Here are sticks and logs and
matches. We shall feel different creatures when we are once warm.”
She shut down the window and boiled some water with her little spirit
lamp; while Lucy, with cunning hands, made in the huge rusty grate
a fire which was soon roaring up the chimney, and pouring its bright
warm light on floor and wall and ceiling. The spirits both of mistress
and maid began to rise a little as they drew up one of the smaller
trunks to the fire, and made a frugal meal of biscuits and milkless
tea.
“It is a horrid place, though, Miss Olivia,” said Lucy, who had been
chilled to the heart by Sarah Wall’s utterances, and did not feel
wholly sure that she herself had not been bewitched by that uncanny
person.
“Oh, I suppose it might have been worse. They might have thrown
bricks at us,” said her mistress; “and remember that two people have
already been very kind to us.”
“Perhaps the young farmer-man only took to us just out of
aggravation because his father didn’t,” suggested Lucy, who was a
well-brought-up girl, and affected to take cynical views of young
men. “And as for the gentleman, why, the old woman as good as
said decent folk had better have nothing to do with him.”
“But you surely wouldn’t take that miserable old woman’s word for
it?”
“No, but I’d take his own face, miss. I watched him when the old
farmer was going on so; and, my gracious! I never see such a black
look on any one’s face before. He seemed to grow all dark and
purple-looking, and his eyes were quite red-like. It was just like as if
he’d have knocked the other man down, miss, that it was.”
“Well, I don’t think I should have thought any the worse of him if he
had.”
“Oh, miss, it’s an evil face. And I’m never deceived about faces. I
said, first time I saw her, that nursery-maid Mrs. Denison sent away
without a character was no good. And then that under-gardener——”
“You mustn’t let your prejudices run away with you. Judge people by
their actions; not their looks. Now, I saw something quite different in
that gentleman’s face, and we can’t both be right. It seemed to me
that he looked like a man who had had a very hard life and a great
deal of trouble; as if he had done nothing but struggle, struggle with
—I don’t know exactly with what; poverty, perhaps, or perhaps with a
violent temper, or——”
She stopped, and stared into the fire, having ceased to remember
that she was carrying on a conversation. Her wandering thoughts,
however, soon took a practical turn again. “The cabman!” she cried,
starting up tragically; “I never paid him.”
She was instinctively turning towards the door, haunted by an
alarming sum in addition of innumerable hours at sixpence every
quarter of an hour, when Lucy’s voice, in tones of great shrewdness,
stopped her.
“Oh, Miss Olivia,” she said, shaking her head knowingly; “he’s gone
away long ago. If this was a place where cabmen would wait for their
fares for two hours without so much as knocking at the door, we
might think ourselves in heaven, which the other people shows us
we’re not.”
“Well, but who paid his fare, then?”
Lucy began to look not only mysterious, but rather alarmed.
“Oh, Miss Olivia, perhaps it’s a plot to get us into his power!”
They had both come to the same conclusion as to the person who
paid the fare, but at this point their reflections branched off into
widely different channels.
“You’re a little goose, Lucy, and you’ve been filling your head with
penny novels, I can see,” said she.
But the obligation to a stranger, which she could scarcely doubt she
was under, troubled her.
“It is very, very awkward to be thrown out like this in a strange place
with nobody to go to for help or advice,” she began; when suddenly a
light came into her face, and she sprang up and ran to fetch her
travelling bag. “I’d forgotten all about it!” she cried, as she drew out a
closed letter directed in an old-fashioned, pointed, feminine hand to
“Mrs. Brander, the Vicarage, Rishton.” “The wife of one of the
curates at Streatham knows the wife of the vicar here, and gave me
a letter of introduction to her. I will go and call upon her at once. If
she is the least nice she will help us, and tell us how to treat with
these savages.”
Olivia was fastening her mantle, which she had not taken off, and
putting on her gloves. Lucy’s round face had grown very long.
“And must I stay here, miss, all by myself?” she asked, dolefully.
Olivia looked at her dubiously.
“I would rather you stayed here, certainly, because, you see, the
furniture might come while we were away,” she said at last. “On the
other hand, if you are going to frighten yourself into a fit at the
scraping of every mouse——”
Lucy drew herself up. She was not really a coward, and this speech
put her upon her mettle.
“I’ll stay, Miss Olivia,” she said, resolutely; adding, in a milder voice,
“You won’t be very long, will you?”
“Indeed I won’t,” answered her mistress, promptly. “I don’t suppose it
takes more than five minutes to go from one end of the village to the
other. We saw the church from the cab windows; it’s on the top of the
hill. I shall make for that; the Vicarage is sure not to be far off.”
Without more delay Olivia left the house, taking the way to the right
by which they had approached the house, in the hope of meeting
some one belonging to the inn who would direct her. She was
fortunate enough to come upon a diminutive villager, who, after
lengthy interrogation and apparent ignorance as to where “the
Vicarage” was, acknowledged to knowing “where the parson lived.”
“Will you take me to the house if I give you twopence?”
“Hey,” replied the small boy, promptly.
He did not start, however, until he had taken an exhaustive survey of
her, either for identification in case she should try to elude him at the
other end of the journey, or to satisfy himself whether she was a
person likely to possess twopence.
“Theer’s two ways,” he said, at last. “Short way over t’ brook, an’ oop
t’ steps and through t’ churchyard; long way by t’ road an’ oop t’ hill.”
“Go the short way, then.”
“Mr. Midgley, t’ carpenter, fell an’ broak his leg goin’ oop theer this
afternoon. An’ t’ churchyard geate’s cloased by now.”
“Well, then, we’ll go the other way, of course.”
The boy trudged along up the road, which was a continuation of that
by which they had come to the farm, and made no attempt at
conversation except in answer to Olivia’s questions. She made out,
after much persevering pumping, that the vicar, Mr. Brander, was
much liked, and that his wife was only a little less popular. After this
there was a pause, which was broken by the boy, as they passed
between a plain stone building, standing back from the road on the
right, and a group of hay and straw stacks, sheds, and farm buildings
on the left.
“That’s Mester Oldshaw’s farm,” said the boy.
“Ugh!” ejaculated Olivia below her breath, hurrying on with angrily
averted eyes.
The whole place, seen by the weak light of the rising moon, seemed
to her to display the repulsive hideousness of its master.
After this the road wound to the left up the hill, and they passed a
few scattered cottages, one of which was the primitive village post
office.
“That be t’ parson’s house,” said the boy, as they came in sight of an
irregularly built stone house standing high, on the left-hand side of
the road, in a well-wooded garden.
They had to go round this garden, and turn sharply to the left into a
private road at the top of the hill. This brought them face to face with
the gates of the little churchyard, while on the left was the front door
of the Vicarage, a pretty building in the Tudor style, which, seen even
in the faint moonlight, had a pleasant, welcoming air of comfort,
peace, and plenty. Olivia gave the boy his twopence, and rang the
bell with a hopeful heart. Everything seemed to promise well for the
success of her errand. A neat maid soon came to the door, but to
Olivia’s inquiry whether Mrs. Brander were at home came the
dispiriting answer that she was away. Miss Denison reflected a
moment.
“Is Mr. Brander at home?” she then asked.
“Yes, ma’am, Mr. Vernon Brander is in. Will you see him?”
“Yes, if I can.”
She followed the servant across the wide, well-formed hall, to a door
at which the maid knocked.
“Come in,” said a voice, which seemed familiar to Olivia.
“A lady wishes to see you, sir,” said the servant.
“Show her in at once,” said the man’s voice.
Olivia drew back instead of advancing, as the servant made way for
her to enter.
“It is Mr. Brander, the clergyman, I wish to see,” said Olivia, hurriedly,
in a low voice.
“Oh, yes, ma’am, it’s all right. Mr. Brander is a clergyman,” answered
the maid, reassuringly.
Before another word could pass, Mr. Brander himself, hearing a
discussion, came to the door. Olivia looked at him in some
confusion. It was her unknown friend of the afternoon!

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978-1285463230 Elements of Modern Algebra

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The elements of relativity First Edition David M.

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International Law of Taxation (Elements of

On the nonexistence of elements of

Dedicated to Mark Mahowald

We show that the Kervaire invariant one elements θj ∈ π2j+1 −2 S 0 exist

By the Detection Theorem, if θj exists, it has a nonzero Hurewicz image in

Very roughly speaking, M U ((C8 )) can be thought of as the cobordism theory

is an example. A suitable C8 -manifold M of real dimension 8n determines a

of the Bott periodicity class and form the C8 -equivariant spectrum ΩO =

from the Adams-Novikov spectral sequence to the C8 homotopy fixed point

The Detection Theorem is proved by investigating this diagram and follows

But πodd ΩO = 0, so this cannot happen.

is an isomorphism, in which the symbol πnC8 ΩO denotes the group of equivariant

Definition 1.11. The set of slice cells (for G) is

Since the restriction of ρG to a subgroup K ⊂ G is isomorphic to (|G/K|)ρK ,

It follows that if Sb is a slice cell of dimension d, then for any m, S mρG ∧ Sb

2. Equivariant stable homotopy theory

if vu and wv are in W, then so are u, v, w, and vwu. Any class W defined

Associated to a homotopical category (C, W) is the homotopy category

category in which a fibration is a map X → Y that for every H ⊂ G is a Serre

of equivariant linear isometric embeddings. If instead of (2.1) the one has

πVG2 −V2 (X)

dim homG (U, V1 ) < dim homG (U, V2 ) − 1.

2.2. Equivariant stable homotopy theory. There is a choice to be made

2.2.1. Spanier-Whitehead stabilization. The G-equivariant Spanier-White-

SpG ∞ and Ω∞ induce adjoint functors

on the homotopy categories.

bedding of SWG into ho SG .

by the formation of wedges. If {Xα } is a collection of objects of SG

· · · → S −Vn ∧ XVn → S −Vn+1 ∧ XVn+1 → · · · ,

in which {Vn } is a fixed increasing sequence of representations eventu-

2.2.2. Equivariant orthogonal spectra. An orthogonal G-spectrum consists

is a G-equivariant homeomorphism. In particular, an orthogonal G-spectrum

The suspension spectrum functor is left adjoint to the 0-space functor.

We call this the tautological presentation of X.

and, in fact, the association

the left adjoint Σ∞ is symmetric monoidal. We will usually drop the Σ∞

and may be written as a “wedge”

where Xi = (Hi )+ ∧ X with Hi ⊂ G the coset indexed by i. Similarly, the

where X i = homH (H i , X) and H i is the left H-coset with index i. The

These are special cases of a more general construction.

Remark 2.10. When the context is clear, we will sometimes abbreviate

in which · · · ⊂ Vn ⊂ Vn+1 ⊂ · · · is any choice of exhausting sequence.

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