As I threw open the door she
glided out with a swift silent movement, but trembling in an agonized
way. As she passed me, she murmured in a low voice, which was almost
lost in the chattering of her teeth:

"Oh, thank you--thank you a thousand times! But I must go. I _must_! I
_must_! I shall come again, and try to show my gratitude. Do not
condemn me as ungrateful--till then." And she was gone. I watched her pass the length of the white path, flitting from shrub to
shrub or statue as she had come. In the cold grey light of the
undeveloped dawn she seemed even more ghostly than she had done in the
black shadow of the night. When she disappeared from sight in the shadow of the wood, I stood on the
terrace for a long time watching, in case I should be afforded another
glimpse of her, for there was now no doubt in my mind that she had for me
some strange attraction. I felt even then that the look in those
glorious starry eyes would be with me always so long as I might live. There was some fascination which went deeper than my eyes or my flesh or
my heart--down deep into the very depths of my soul. My mind was all in
a whirl, so that I could hardly think coherently. It all was like a
dream; the reality seemed far away. It was not possible to doubt that
the phantom figure which had been so close to me during the dark hours of
the night was actual flesh and blood. Yet she was so cold, so cold! Altogether I could not fix my mind to either proposition: that it was a
living woman who had held my hand, or a dead body reanimated for the time
or the occasion in some strange manner. The difficulty was too great for me to make up my mind upon it, even had
I wanted to. But, in any case, I did not want to. This would, no doubt,
come in time. But till then I wished to dream on, as anyone does in a
dream which can still be blissful though there be pauses of pain, or
ghastliness, or doubt, or terror. So I closed the window and drew the curtain again, feeling for the first
time the cold in which I had stood on the wet marble floor of the terrace
when my bare feet began to get warm on the soft carpet. To get rid of
the chill feeling I got into the bed on which _she_ had lain, and as the
warmth restored me tried to think coherently. For a short while I was
going over the facts of the night--or what seemed as facts to my
remembrance. But as I continued to think, the possibilities of any
result seemed to get less, and I found myself vainly trying to reconcile
with the logic of life the grim episode of the night. The effort proved
to be too much for such concentration as was left to me; moreover,
interrupted sleep was clamant, and would not be denied. What I dreamt
of--if I dreamt at all--I know not. I only know that I was ready for
waking when the time came. It came with a violent knocking at my door. I sprang from bed, fully awake in a second, drew the bolt, and slipped
back to bed. With a hurried "May I come in?" Aunt Janet entered. She
seemed relieved when she saw me, and gave without my asking an
explanation of her perturbation:

"Oh, laddie, I hae been so uneasy aboot ye all the nicht. I hae had
dreams an' veesions an' a' sorts o' uncanny fancies. I fear that--"  She
was by now drawing back the curtain, and as her eyes took in the marks of
wet all over the floor the current of her thoughts changed:

"Why, laddie, whativer hae ye been doin' wi' yer baith? Oh, the mess ye
hae made! 'Tis sinful to gie sic trouble an' waste . . . " And so she
went on. I was glad to hear the tirade, which was only what a good
housewife, outraged in her sentiments of order, would have made. I
listened in patience--with pleasure when I thought of what she would have
thought (and said) had she known the real facts. I was well pleased to
have got off so easily. RUPERT'S JOURNAL--_Continued_. _April_ 10, 1907. For some days after what I call "the episode" I was in a strange
condition of mind. I did not take anyone--not even Aunt Janet--into
confidence. Even she dear, and open-hearted and liberal-minded as she
is, might not have understood well enough to be just and tolerant; and I
did not care to hear any adverse comment on my strange visitor. Somehow
I could not bear the thought of anyone finding fault with her or in her,
though, strangely enough, I was eternally defending her to myself; for,
despite my wishes, embarrassing thoughts _would_ come again and again,
and again in all sorts and variants of queries difficult to answer. I
found myself defending her, sometimes as a woman hard pressed by
spiritual fear and physical suffering, sometimes as not being amenable to
laws that govern the Living. Indeed, I could not make up my mind whether
I looked on her as a living human being or as one with some strange
existence in another world, and having only a chance foothold in our own. In such doubt imagination began to work, and thoughts of evil, of danger,
of doubt, even of fear, began to crowd on me with such persistence and in
such varied forms that I found my instinct of reticence growing into a
settled purpose. The value of this instinctive precaution was promptly
shown by Aunt Janet's state of mind, with consequent revelation of it. She became full of gloomy prognostications and what I thought were morbid
fears. For the first time in my life I discovered that Aunt Janet had
nerves! I had long had a secret belief that she was gifted, to some
degree at any rate, with Second Sight, which quality, or whatever it is,
skilled in the powers if not the lore of superstition, manages to keep at
stretch not only the mind of its immediate pathic, but of others relevant
to it. Perhaps this natural quality had received a fresh impetus from
the arrival of some cases of her books sent on by Sir Colin. She
appeared to read and reread these works, which were chiefly on occult
subjects, day and night, except when she was imparting to me choice
excerpts of the most baleful and fearsome kind. Indeed, before a week
was over I found myself to be an expert in the history of the cult, as
well as in its manifestations, which latter I had been versed in for a
good many years. The result of all this was that it set me brooding. Such, at least, I
gathered was the fact when Aunt Janet took me to task for it. She always
speaks out according to her convictions, so that her thinking I brooded
was to me a proof that I did; and after a personal examination I
came--reluctantly--to the conclusion that she was right, so far, at any
rate, as my outer conduct was concerned. The state of mind I was in,
however, kept me from making any acknowledgment of it--the real cause of
my keeping so much to myself and of being so _distrait_. And so I went
on, torturing myself as before with introspective questioning; and she,
with her mind set on my actions, and endeavouring to find a cause for
them, continued and expounded her beliefs and fears.