She went over to the sofa and felt the empty corner where Granny used to sit. No, she was not there. The sofa was a bare, hard object, with nothing phantasmal about it. There were no silken cushions. Those amenities had been Lady Felicia's private property, travelling to and fro by _petite vitesse_. There was no one on the sofa, and that dark form, the tall figure near the tea-table, was nothing but shadow. It vanished as she came near and there was only empty space, with the white table shining in the faint light from the open window. "Nothing but shadow," she thought, "like my life. There is nothing left of that but shadow." "How happy I must have been, when I lived in this room, how happy! But I did not know it. How sweetly I used to sleep, and what dear dreams I dreamt. I was only seventeen in our first winter, and I was a good girl. Looking back I cannot remember that I had ever done wrong. I was always obedient to Granny, and I tried hard to please her, and to care for her when she was ill. I always spoke the truth. The truth? Why should I have been afraid of truth in those days? There was no merit in fearless truth. But the difference, the difference!" It seemed so strange now that she had not been happier. To be young and without sin: to believe in God and to love Christ. Was not that enough for happiness? The room was almost dark before she rang for lamps. In that southern paradise the shutting of windows must precede the entrance of lighted lamps; and one is apt to prolong the time _entre chien et loup_. The darkness fostered those morbid feelings that she had indulged of late. She thought of Francis Symeon, and his belief in the communion of the living and the dead. Her husband might be near her as she crept about in the darkness. She might _know_ that he was there; but she was not to hope for any visible sign of his presence. To see was reserved for the elect; and for them only when the earthly tabernacle was near its end, when the veil between life and death had worn thin. _Then_ only, and for the choicest spirits only, would that thin veil be rent asunder and the dead reveal themselves to the living, in a divine anticipation of immortality. "Not for all, not for those who have loved earthly things and lived the sensual life, not for them the afterlife of reunion and felicity." "Not for me--never for me." She fell on her knees by Granny's sofa, and bowed her head upon her folded arms and prayed--a wild and fervent prayer--a distracted appeal for mercy to One Who knew, and could pity. Such a prayer as might have trembled on the Magdalen's pale lips while, with bent head and hidden countenance, she washed the Redeemer's feet with her tears. The spell that was woven of silence and shadow was broken suddenly by the opening of the door and the tumultuous entrance of the Irish terrier, followed by Louison, who saw only darkness and an empty room. "Mais où donc est Madame?" she exclaimed.