Autumn drew on, and here in Russia hard upon its heels was winter; already early in October there was talk at the _pension_ of the snow's coming soon, and Sylvia did not feel inclined to stay here in the solitude that snow would create. Moreover, she was anxious not to let Mère Gontran wish for her going on account of the expense, and she would not have stayed as long as she had if her hostess had not been so obviously distressed at the idea of her leaving before she could be accounted perfectly well again. In order to repay her hospitality, Sylvia assisted gravely--and one might say reverently--at all her follies of magic. Nor, under the influence of Mère Gontran's earnestness, was it always possible to be sure about the foolish side. There were often moments when Sylvia was frightened in these fast-closing daylights and long wintry eves by the unending provocation of the dead that was as near as Mère Gontran got to evocation, although she claimed to be always seeing apparitions, of which Sylvia, fortunately for her nerves, was never granted a vision. The climax was reached on the night of the first snowfall, soon after the middle of October, when Mère Gontran came to Sylvia's bedroom, her crimson dressing-gown dusted with dry flakes of snow, and begged her to come out in the garden to hear Gontran communicating with her from a lilac-bush. It was in vain that Sylvia protested against being dragged out of bed on such a cold night; Mère Gontran, candle in hand, towered up above her with such a dominating excitement that Sylvia let herself be over-persuaded and followed her out into the garden. From what had formerly been Carrier's room the owls hooted at the moon; Samuel, the talking collie, was baying dolefully; the snowfall, too light to give to the nocturnal landscape a pure and crystalline beauty, was enough to destroy the familiar aspect of the scene and to infect it with a withered papery look, turning house and garden to the color of dry bones. "He's in the lilac-bush by the outhouse," Mère Gontran whispered. "When I went past, one of the boughs caught hold of my hand, and he spoke in a queer, crackling voice, as of course somebody would speak if he were speaking through a bush." Sylvia could not bear it any longer; she suddenly turned back and ran up to her bedroom, vowing that to-morrow she would make a serious effort to leave Petrograd. "However short my hair," she laughed, "there's no reason why it should be made to stand on end like that."