"The Lord have mercy upon us!" said Archelaus, in a hushed voice. It took them two or three seconds to understand that the words were not an answer to Miss Gabriel; that he had spoken them to himself, staring--as he still stared--down the steps, down the green alley leading to the terrace. Then, perceiving that something was amiss with the man, they too stepped to the balustrade and looked down--as up the leafy path came the very woman of their speculations--Vashti, faultlessly arrayed, trailing a neat parasol and humming a song as she drew near. "The same!" gasped Miss Gabriel. "I call you to witness, Charlotte!" "But, you'll excuse me," Mr. Pope objected, "she don't appear to answer precisely to a Jezebel." "You men think of nothing but outward show," snapped Miss Gabriel. "Well, and that's something," Archelaus put in with affability, his spirits rising as the danger drew nearer. "Talk about Garrison Hill! She seems to be pretty well at home on Inniscaw, too." For Vashti, halting in the chequered sunlight beneath a trellised arch, had reached up the hooked handle of her sunshade to draw down the spray of a late autumnal rose, and stood for a moment inhaling its odour. It may be that just then she caught sight of the watchers upon the terrace. If so, not a movement betrayed her. As though reluctantly, she released the branch and, as it sprang upward, resumed her way up the path, disappearing for a moment under a massed canopy of Virgin's Bower. A few seconds, and she would emerge into view again, almost at the foot of the terrace stairs. They waited. "But whatever has become of the woman?" asked Miss Gabriel. "It's confoundedly odd!" growled the Lord Proprietor. "She may have turned down a by-path." "There's no by-path within fifty yards of her. More likely she's stopping to take a smell of the clematis.... We might step down and see." The Lord Proprietor suited the action to the words and led the way. "In my opinion, if you want it," said Archelaus, "you won't find her there. Because why? She's a ghost." "A ghost?" quavered Mrs. Pope. "Nonsense, my dear!" Her husband offered his arm to assist her down the steps. "Such a beautiful young person!" "The first time I saw her she didn't frighten me at all," agreed Mrs. Pope; "but if she's going to bob in and out of sight in this way, I shan't sleep in my bed to-night." A cry from the Lord Proprietor startled them. He had plunged down the path beneath the overarching clematis. They ran to overtake him, and found him staring at vacancy. Vashti had vanished, apparently into thin air. "Oh, but this is midsummer moonshine!" declared Sir Caesar. "The woman must be hiding somewhere near. Miss Gabriel, if you will kindly attend to Mrs. Pope, her husband and I will search the thickets hereabouts." They searched in the thickets and along the garden paths, but without recovering a trace of the unknown. Not so much as a glimpse of her skirt rewarded them.