"Mrs. Lamb, if you'll exercise a little common-sense and allow me to finish, I think I shall be able to prove, even to your satisfaction, that what you've just now witnessed----" "Don't you see him? He beckons to us. Can't you hear how hard he fights for his breath?" "No; nor you either. Aren't you well? Is this one of those fits of which you were telling me trying to come back, in which you see things? If so, keep it off as long as you conveniently can. So far as I'm concerned it will only need that to put a crown and climax on my night's enjoyment. Listen to me, Isabel----" "Come!" Taking him by the arm, she led him up to the house. When they reached the front door she took a key out of the bag which she still carried. After a momentary hesitation she held it up, as if to call his attention to something that was taking place within. "Listen! Don't you hear? He calls to us! Let us go to him. I've often heard him calling to me like that in the night--often." During the last few seconds, for some occult reason, a change had taken place in her which had apparently revolutionised the whole woman externally as well as internally; her bearing, her manner, her voice, and especially her face, had changed. The alteration in the latter was nothing short of amazing. Just now its predominating expression was one of boldness, defiance, reckless rage. She had looked as if she feared neither man nor devil; her looks had probably only mirrored her actual feelings. This air of wildness, of careless contempt for the unknown, unseen perils, which, according to her companion, hemmed her in on every side, had been accentuated by the fact that, having lost her hat when the cart was overturned, her thick black hair had broken loose from its fastenings and hung in tangled masses about her face. She had looked what she emphatically was, a dangerous woman in a dangerous frame of mind. Now all that had changed. She looked no longer angry or defiant; all traces of boldness had vanished altogether. Instead, a stolid, fixed expression had come upon her face, one which, as it were, was void of all expression. In her wide-open eyes there was a strained, staring look, which conveyed an uncomfortable impression that she was gazing at something which only she could see, gazing with a fixed intensity of vision as if she was bent on not losing even the minutest details. As she stood there, with uplifted face, the rays of the lantern lighting up her rigid features, Mr. Luker observed her with an appearance of unmistakable discomfort. The significance of the change which had taken place in her was borne in on him with uncomfortable force. The change in her affected him; he was obviously becoming each second more uneasy. He seemed to make a desperate attempt to conquer his own increasing apprehension, and to restore her to her former state of mind.