I was about half-way on my road home, and I had just heard the clock of a village church strike ten, when I became conscious, little by little, of a chilly sensation slowly creeping through and through me to the bones. The warm, balmy air of a summer night was abroad. It was the month of July. In the month of July, was it possible that any living creature (in good health) could feel cold? It was _not_ possible--and yet, the chilly sensation still crept through and through me to the bones. I looked up. I looked all round me. My horse was walking along an open highroad. Neither trees nor waters were near me. On either side, the flat fields stretched away bright and broad in the moonlight. I stopped my horse, and looked round me again. Yes: I saw it. With my own eyes I saw it. A pillar of white mist--between five and six feet high, as well as I could judge--was moving beside me at the edge of the road, on my left hand. When I stopped, the white mist stopped. When I went on, the white mist went on. I pushed my horse to a trot--the pillar of mist was with me. I urged him to a gallop---the pillar of mist was with me. I stopped him again--the pillar of mist stood still. The white color of it was the white color of the fog which I had seen over the river--on the night when I had gone to bid her farewell. And the chill which had then crept through me to the bones was the chill that was creeping through me now. I went on again slowly. The white mist went on again slowly--with the clear bright night all round it. I was awed rather than frightened. There was one moment, and one only, when the fear came to me that my reason might be shaken. I caught myself keeping time to the slow tramp of the horse's feet with the slow utterances of these words, repeated over and over again: "Jeromette is dead. Jeromette is dead." But my will was still my own: I was able to control myself, to impose silence on my own muttering lips. And I rode on quietly. And the pillar of mist went quietly with me. My groom was waiting for my return at the rectory gate. I pointed to the mist, passing through the gate with me. "Do you see anything there?" I said. The man looked at me in astonishment. I entered the rectory. The housekeeper met me in the hall. I pointed to the mist, entering with me. "Do you see anything at my side?" I asked. The housekeeper looked at me as the groom had looked at me. "I am afraid you are not well, sir," she said. "Your color is all gone--you are shivering. Let me get you a glass of wine." I went into my study, on the ground-floor, and took the chair at my desk. The photograph still lay where I had left it. The pillar of mist floated round the table, and stopped opposite to me, behind the photograph.