In his exultation Mellen dashed forward, urging his horse across the open space till he was considerably in advance of his attendant. The moon shivered out again for an instant, and Mr. Mellen saw a woman shrouded in a long cloak rushing towards the house. Some instinct, rather than any real recognition of her person, made him cry out, as he leaped from the horse and left him free: "Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" The figure paused. There was a faint cry; at the same instant Mellen heard a violent rustle in the shrubbery, with a sudden downpour of raindrops, scarcely noticed, as he hurried towards the lady, but well remembered afterwards. She was standing upright and still, as if that unexpected voice had changed her to stone; her hair had broken loose and was streaming wildly over her shoulders; one hand was lifted above her eyes, as she strained her sight through the gloom. "Elizabeth!" he called again. "Who is it?" she cried, in a suppressed voice, that had all the sharpness of an agonised shriek. "Who calls to me?" He reached her side as she spoke. "Don't you know me?" he exclaimed. "My wife! my wife! I have come back at last!" There was one wild look--one heavy breath--he heard a low exclamation: "My God! oh, my God!" Before he could discover whether this was a cry of thanksgiving or not, she fell forward and lay motionless at his feet. After that first second of stupefaction, Mr. Mellen checked the wonderment of the man--who by this time had come up--and between them they carried the senseless woman to the house. The servant who met them in the hall gave a cry of dismay at the sight of her master thus suddenly entering the house with his wife lying like a dead woman in his arms, and was ready to believe that the whole sight was a ghostly illusion. "Bring some wine," called Mellen; "is there a fire? Are you deaf and blind, girl?" "It is the masther!" exclaimed the frightened creature. "It's the masther come back--oh, I thought I'd seed ghosts at last!" Her cries brought the whole household up from the basement; but regardless of their wonder and alarm, Grantley Mellen carried his wife away towards the library, and laid her upon a couch. It was some moments before Elizabeth Mellen opened her eyes, then she glanced about with a vacant, startled look, as if unable to comprehend what had happened. Her husband was standing in the shadow, gazing down at her with the strange, moody look so unlike the active alarm which would have filled the mind of most men, and she did not at first perceive his presence. "I thought I saw Grantley," she murmured. "I--I have gone mad at last." "Elizabeth!" She struggled up on the couch, and looked towards him with a wild expression of the eyes, forced out by recent terror or sudden joy at finding that she had not been deceived by some mental illusion. "Is it you, Grantley?" she exclaimed. "Is it really you?"