He had hardly arrived at this point when he received a shock. There came
an evening when she was not at the window. Next morning he walked down Wood Lane on his way to the office. He
always went by train, but he felt a strong disinclination to go through
another day without a sight of her. His heart began to beat like a
schoolgirl’s as he drew near the house. If she should be at the window. He was almost disposed to take his courage in his hand and call on her,
and--yes, even--tell her in a quick burst that she had mysteriously
become all the world to him. He could see nothing ridiculous in this
course; the possibility of her being married, or having family ties of
any sort, had simply never occurred to him. However, she was not at the window; what was more, there was a sinister
silence, a sort of breathlessness about the whole place. It was a very hot morning in late August. He looked a long time, but no
face came, and no movement stirred the house. He went his way, walking like a man who has been heavily knocked on the
brow and sees stars still. That afternoon he left the office early, and
in less than an hour stood at the gate again. The window was blank. He
pushed the gate back--it hung on one hinge--and walked up the drive to
the door. There were five steps--five steps leading up to it. At the
foot he wheeled aside sharply to the window; he had a sick dread of
looking through the small panes--why he could not have told. When at last he found courage to look he saw that there was a small
round table set just under the window--a work-table to all appearance;
one of those things with lots of little compartments all round and a lid
in the middle which shut over a well-like cavity for holding pieces of
needlework. He remembered that his mother had one--thirty years before. Round the edge of the table was gripped a small, delicate hand. Gilbert
Dent’s eyes ran from this bloodless hand and slim wrist to a shoulder
under a coarse stuff bodice--to a rather wasted throat, which was bare
and flung back. So this was the end--before the beginning. He saw her. She was dead;
twisted on the floor with a ghastly face turned up toward the ceiling,
and stiff fingers caught in desperation round the work table. He stumbled away along the path and into the lane. For a long time he could not realize the horror of this thing. The
influence of the decayed house hung over him--nothing seemed real. It
was quite dark when he moved away from the gate, and went in the
direction of the nearest police station. That she was dead--this woman
whose very name he did not know although she influenced him so
powerfully--he was certain; one look at the face would have told anyone
that. That she was murdered he more than suspected. He had seen no blood
about; there had been no mark on the long, bare throat, and yet the word
rushed in his ears, “Murder.”

Later on he went back with a police officer. They broke into the house and entered the room. It was in utter
darkness, of course, by now. Dent, his fingers trembling, struck a
match. It flared round the walls and lighted them for a moment before he
let it fall on the dusty floor. The policeman began to light his lantern and turned it stolidly on the
window. He had no reason for delay; he was eager to get to the bottom of
the business. His professional zeal was whetted; this promised to be a
mystery with a spice in it. He turned the light full on the window; he gave a strange, choked cry,
half of rage, half of apprehension. Then he went up to Gilbert Dent, who
stood in the middle of the room with his hands before his eyes, and took
his shoulder and shook it none too gently. “There ain’t nobody,” he said. Dent looked wildly at the window--the recess was empty except for the
work-table. The woman was gone. They searched the house; they minutely inspected the garden. Everything
was normal; everything told the same mournful tale--of desertion, of
death, of long empty years. But they found no woman, nor trace of one. “This house,” said the policeman, looking suspiciously into the lawyer’s
face, “has been empty for longer than I can remember. Nobody’ll live in
it. They do say something about foul play a good many years ago. I don’t
know about that. All I do know is that the landlord can’t get it off his
hands.”

It was doubtful if Gilbert Dent heard one word of what the man was
saying. He was too stunned to do anything but creep home--when he was
allowed to go--and let himself stealthily into his own house with a
latch key; he was afraid even of himself. He did not go to bed that
night. As for the mystery of the woman, the matter was allowed to drop; it
ended--officially. There was a shrug and a grin at the police station. The impression there was that the lawyer had been drinking--that the
dead woman in the empty room was a gruesome freak of his tipsy brain. *       *       *       *       *

A week or so later Dent called on his brother Ned--the one near relation
he had. Ned was a doctor; perhaps he was a shade more matter-of-fact
than Gilbert; at all events, when the latter told his story of the house
and the woman, he attributed the affair solely to liver. “You are overworked”--the elder brother looked at the younger’s yellow
face. “An experience of this nature is by no means uncommon. Haven’t you
heard of people having their pet ‘spooks’?”

“But this was a real woman,” he declared. “I--I, well, I was in love
with her. I had made up my mind to marry her--if I could.”

Ned gave him a keen, swift glance. “We’ll go to Brighton to-morrow,” he said, with quiet decision. “As for
your work, everything must be put aside. You’ve run completely down. You
ought to have been taken in hand before.”

They went to Brighton, and it really seemed as if Ned was right, and
that the woman at the window had been merely a nervous creation. It
seemed so, that is, for nearly three weeks, and then the climax came. It was in the twilight--she had always been part of it--that Gilbert
Dent saw her again; the woman that he had found lying dead. They were walking, the two brothers, along the cliffs. The wind was blowing in their faces, the sea was booming beneath the
cliff. Ned had just said it was about time they turned back to the hotel
and had some dinner, when Gilbert with a cry leapt forward to the very
edge of the flat grass path on which they were strolling. The movement
was so sudden that his brother barely caught him in time. They
struggled and swayed on the very edge of the cliff for a second;
Gilbert, possessed by some sudden frenzy, seemed resolved to go over,
but the other at last dragged him backward, and they rolled together on
the close, thick turf. At this point Gilbert opened his eyes and tried to get on his feet. “Better?” asked his brother, cheerfully, holding out a helping hand. “Strange! The sea has that effect on some people. Didn’t think that you
were one of them.”

“What effect?”

“Vertigo, my dear fellow.”

“Ned,” said the other solemnly, “I saw her.