Barbara was alone at Greystones. Jess had gone to the village, but the girl was not afraid, although she was becoming conscious of another presence there. The personality of the old house awoke, and took form. She had often seen it before, a gaunt, grim figure--older far than the great-grandmother--whose eyes were haunted by memories, whose features were stricken by sorrow, whose cheeks were lined with the marks of a wild yet lonely life. Such was the grey spirit of Greystones. This afternoon it seemed to rise out of the flags at her feet, and stand waiting, waiting as it had waited again and again through the centuries while a Lynn died. From each soul that passed under its roof it took the memories, the tragedies, the passions, and made them its own. There was no sorrow known to human beings that it had not suffered, no joy it had not tasted, but it tasted sparingly, for joy was not the common lot of those who slept in its shelter. No Lynn was a stranger to it or unconscious of its reality; it lived with each one intimately, was present at both bed and board, and linked the generations together with its worn hands, giving to the new the blessing or curse of the old. Some had fled from it, afraid as of a ghost. Lucy had been afraid. Others, like Barbara, might shiver in its shadow, yet felt for it something which they could not justify, nor explain. But the ghost of Greystones--call it what you will--was not immortal. It must die with the fabric that was its body, and already there were signs that that body was sinking into ruin. Barbara thought of the doom which had been spoken over it long ago, spoken, no one knew by whom, but perhaps by a Lynn, who had feared its personality, that some day it would fall, and then would end the race of strenuous souls, who had inhabited it for three hundred years. Thus these two--Barbara and the old house--watched and waited while the spirit of the great-grandmother struggled to be free, and leave for ever the place it had known for generations, which it had upheld by its own force of will, because it was determined to live there to the end. Otherwise, Greystones would have been deserted long ago, have become the home of bats and owls, till the fall of its roof-tree buried all its memories in a ruinous heap. The day was drawing to its close, the fire had died down, and the room was dim. Dim looked the clock, dim the empty arm-chair, and the four-poster was already vanishing into night. Barbara heard a rattle on the roof, but did not heed it. She thought that the weather had changed again, and hail was falling instead of rain. The short shower died away as abruptly as it had begun.