“Always,” Lady Ulrica said solemnly, before Vernon could reply. Harrison was about to speak again when Greatorex cut in. “I say,” he said, in a voice that held a just perceptible note of excitement, “is that one of your maids down there by the lake? Girl in white; moving about by the yews?” “What _do_ you mean?” Mrs. Harrison replied, speaking with a little flurry of haste. “It must be after eleven, and the maids are in bed long ago, I hope.” “Someone down there, anyway,” Greatorex asserted. “Hm, hm! G.’s quite right, my dear,” Harrison said. “I--I think we ought to investigate this in the cause of common morality.” “Charles? It may be one of the village girls,” his wife suggested. “In which case she has no business in our paddock at midnight,” Harrison replied, and as he spoke he began to walk with an air of mechanical determination towards the steps in the sunk fence that led to the meadow. “Shall we all go?” Greatorex asked, but Mrs. Harrison manifestly hesitated. “I don’t know. Do you think, perhaps....” she began. Greatorex, however, had not waited for her permission, and in half a dozen strides he too had reached the meadow. Vernon, Lady Ulrica and Mrs. Greatorex followed him with an effect of yielding to a sudden impulse, and Emma found herself alone on the lawn with Robert Fell. “Well, if they’re all going,” she said with a little hysterical laugh, “I suppose we may as well go, too.” “I don’t know. Yes. Do you think we ought?” Fell replied in a strangely agitated voice. Mrs. Harrison turned to look at him with a little start of surprise. “Surely you’re not afraid?” she asked, unconsciously revealing the cause of her own reluctance. “Afraid?” he echoed, entirely misunderstanding her true intention. “Afraid of what?” “Well--ghosts!” she said. “But you don’t really imagine, Mrs. Harrison....” Fell began. “Not for one moment,” she said with determination. She was disturbed and a trifle shocked by the marks of his agitation, which had nevertheless stiffened her own courage. She was prepared now to demonstrate how little she cared for an unexpected coldness in the air, or for white figures moving about at the most unlikely hours on the borders of the lake. Already the shadows of the other five were stringing out across the meadow, all of them clearly visible in the milky light of the thinly veiled moon. They were moving very deliberately; but a certain deliberation of approach was only decent if they expected to disturb a tryst. “Well, aren’t you coming, Mr. Fell?” Emma asked sharply. He sighed and then, “Yes, I’ll come,” he said, in the tone of one who finally commits himself. PART 2: THE APPEARANCE 1