"This place depresses me horribly. I don't know when I've felt so sad," Miss Smith observed. "It's very stupid of me, I know, but I can't help thinking some great tragedy must have taken place here." "I feel rather like that too," Miss Raven responded. "I've never seen such dreariness. Do you see those shadows on the water? How strange they are! There's nothing that I can see to account for them. There's certainly nothing the least like them in the sedge. Besides, there oughtn't to be any shadows there. There are none anywhere else. Look! Oh, do look! They are changing. They are completely different now. See, I'll throw a stone at them." Her throw, missing its mark, was so characteristically girlish that Miss Smith, despite her leanings to suffragism, laughed. Miss Raven threw again, and this time a deep plomb announced her success. "There," she cried triumphantly. "Now do you see it?" "I see something," Miss Smith answered. Then, with sudden eagerness: "Yes, you are right. The shadows are continually changing. They seem to separate themselves from the sedge, and fall like live things into the pool. By the way, the pool seems to be growing darker and bigger. I don't like the place at all. For Heaven's sake let's get away from it!" Miss Raven, however, was too fascinated. Stepping carefully, so as to avoid the mud and long grass, she went right up to the pool and peered into it. "How fearfully deep and still it is," she said. "What a beastly place to end one's days in." Then she gave a sudden cry. "Aileen! Here! Come here, quick!" Miss Smith hastened up to her. "What is it?" she said. "How you frightened me!" Miss Raven pointed excitedly at the water. It was no longer tranquil. The chickweed round the edges began to oscillate, white bubbles formed in the centre, and then, quite suddenly, the entire surface became a seething, hissing, rushing, roaring whirlpool, which commenced rising in the most hideous and menacing manner. Seizing Miss Raven by the arm, Miss Smith dragged her back, and the two fled in terror. The fog, however, was so thick that they missed their way. They failed to strike the road, and, instead, found themselves plunging deeper and deeper into a fearful quagmire of mud and the rankest compound of rushes, weeds, and grass. They were just despairing of ever extricating themselves when Miss Smith felt a light tap on her shoulder, and swinging round, was almost startled out of her senses at the sight of a very white face glaring at her. Miss Raven, noticing that her companion had stopped, also turned round; and she too received a shock. The face she saw was so very white; the eyes--intently fixed on Miss Smith--so strangely luminous; the head--covered with red, shaggy hair--so disproportionately large; and the figure--that of a hunchback youth--as a whole so extraordinarily grotesque.