Mrs. Harrison dropped her voice to an indiscreet confidence. “I always think that our poor dear Lady Ulrica,” she whispered, “is so very much the type from which mediums are made. You know, stout, placid, and not too clever.” “Queer thing why mediums should generally be so stupid,” commented Greatorex, tactfully avoiding any overt agreement with his hostess’s description of Lady Ulrica. For a few minutes the party drifted about the lawn in couples, with the exception of Harrison, who maintaining a little distance from the others was pacing restlessly up and down, either working off his spleen or thinking out some really telling retort that should settle Vernon’s business once and for all. The moon was now high in the heavens, but it had suffered another transmutation. A faint screen of misty cirrus had crept over the sky, and the brass was toned down almost to the whiteness of silver. And with this change, the light in the garden had become more diffused. The shadows had lost their hardness, the high-lights their accentuation. And by degrees, some sense of a peculiar quality in the night began to affect every member of the little party on the lawn. They began by almost imperceptible changes in their movements to drift together into a little knot, like the swimming bubbles in a cup. The area of their promenade diminished until even Harrison himself had come into the focus; and yet when they had again drawn into a group they had nothing to say to one another. It is true that they were still conscious of a slight social constraint, due to what had amounted to a quarrel between the host and one of his guests. But there was something in their attitude and their common movement towards each other that suggested some deeper cause for their momentary awkwardness. It was as if each of them was aware of some sudden fear, and hesitated to speak lest the shameful fact should be revealed. It was Mrs. Harrison who first broke a silence that was becoming altogether too insistent--even the soft hush of their feet upon the grass had ceased. She laughed artificially, with a touch as it seemed of bravado, a laugh that might have disguised a shudder. “I don’t know how it seems to you,” she said in a high strained voice, “but it strikes me that it’s actually getting a little chilly.” “Yes, yes. It is, Emma,” her husband replied with an effect of relief. “I--I think we’d better go in. We get a cold air off the lake, now and again,” he explained to the company at large. “Precious little air, Harrison,” muttered Greatorex. “I’ve never known a stiller night.” “Haze come over the moon,” commented Fell, staring up into the sky. “It has certainly turned colder,” remarked Lady Ulrica with a shiver; “much colder.” Harrison cleared his throat and made his usual effort to get his pitch. “Hm! Hm! Perhaps we’re going to get some phenomena,” he said with a slightly cracked laugh. “Always the first warning, isn’t it, Vernon, a draught of cold air?”