At that moment Enid recalled, by one instinctive flash of memory, the words that Maurice Evandale had said to her. If ever she saw "the ghost" again, she was to speak to it--she was not to be afraid. God would take care of her. With a sort of mental clutch at the strength residing in those words, she maintained herself in a sitting posture and looked the white woman full in the face. Yes, it was Flossy's face; but was it Flossy herself? For the figure made a strange threatening gesture, and glided smoothly towards the door as if to disappear--though in natural and not very ghost-like fashion, for the door stood wide open, and it was the soft cool night-breeze of summer that had opened Enid's slumbering eyes. In another moment the visitor would be gone, and Enid would never know whether what she saw was a reality or a dream. That should not be. Strength and courage suddenly returned to her, inspired by the remembrance of her lover and his words, she would speak. "Why are you here?" she said. Still no answer. The figure glided onward, and its eyes--glittering and baleful--were never once removed from Enid's face. With one supreme effort, the girl sprang from the bed and threw herself in the strange visitor's way. The figure halted and drew back. Enid laid a hand upon its arm. Ah, yes, thank Heaven, she felt the touch of flesh and blood! No weird reflected image of a wandering brain was before her; a woman--only a wicked desperate woman--stood in her way. Enid was not afraid. "Florence," she said, "why are you here?" The woman dashed down the detaining hand. She knew that it was of no use to assume any longer the character with which she had hoped to impress the mind of the sensitive, nervous, delicate girl. She was no ghost indeed; she could figure no longer as a nightmare in Enid's memory. She stood revealed. But she did not lose her self possession. After a moment's pause, she spoke with dignity. "I came here," she said, "to see whether you were sleeping quietly. Surely I may do so much for my husband's niece?" "And what were you doing there?" said Enid, pointing to the mantelpiece. "Why were you tampering with what Mr. Ingledew sends me to take?" "Tampering, you silly girl? You do not know the meaning of your own words!" "Do I not? What have you in your hand?" She grasped at the little phial which Flossy had half hidden in the white folds of her dressing-gown--grasped at it, and succeeded, by the quickness of her movement, in wrenching it from Mrs. Vane's hand. Then, even by the dim light of the candle, she could see that Flossy's color waned, and that her narrow eyes were distended with sudden fear. "Why do you take that? Give it me back!" "Yes," said Enid, upon whom the excitement had acted like a draught of wine, giving color to her face and decision to her tones--"yes, when I have found out what it contains." "You little fool--you will not know when you look at it!"