The frozen intensity of the silence that appeared to follow his question may have been due to the fact that each member of the party was holding his or her breath in the expectation of the moment. The figure moved. Slowly and with an almost painful deliberation she released the ends of the tulle scarf that was about her head and shoulders, and let her hands fall to her sides. Her mouth opened, but she did not speak; and after what might have been another effort to reply--a just perceptible movement of the head--she took a careful step backward, entering again the shadow of the yews. “But, I say, you know....” Harrison began. She interrupted him with a gesture, raising her hand and pointing with an unmistakable certainty at Lady Ulrica. And the hand and forearm that by this gesture she once more plunged into the moonlight had something the appearance of opalescent glass. Harrison, standing with his back to the house-party, did not understand this indication and turned his head to see who or what had been selected for peculiar notice; but Lady Ulrica responded with a fine dignity. She came forward past Harrison right up to the edge of the yews, and said in a voice that did credit to her breeding: “My dear, what is it? Can I help you in any way?” And then, no doubt to the infinite relief of the Harrisons, the unknown replied. She had a little husky voice when she first spoke, a voice that suggested the last sleepy clutter of roosting birds; and her speech came with an appearance of effort. “Presently,” she said rather indistinctly, and added something that sounded like “more strength.” Lady Ulrica was painfully short-sighted. She had those large, protuberant brown eyes, almost devoid of expression, that are sometimes indicative of heart trouble. And as she answered, she was fumbling at her breast for the impressive, handled lorgnette that was discovered later on the coffee table under the cedar. “We weren’t quite sure, you know,” she said in her authoritative contralto; “whether you were an apparition or not, and so we came to see. But, of course, now we have seen you and heard you speak, we shall be delighted to help you if you want help, or--if you’d prefer it--to go away.” “Stay near me,” the stranger said in a clearer voice, and striking a lower pitch than when she had spoken first. “Till I get more strength.” The rest of the party had paused in a little knot, some six or seven feet away, while this brief conversation had gone forward, listening staring with an absorption that in other circumstances might have been judged as slightly lacking in good taste. But now, some kind of realisation of their attitude seemed to come to them, and they diverted their attention by a manifest effort from the two people on the edge of the plantation and began to talk in low voices among themselves. Mrs. Harrison, moving across to her husband, looked at him with raised eyebrows, silently asking the obvious question.