"What's that?" queried Aunt Beatrice. "Can't read what you've written? You remind me of our old writing-master at school, who used to say tragically that he couldn't understand how it was that when that happened to a man he didn't just take a gun and shoot himself. I recommend you the pond, Mildred. It's more feminine." "Please don't talk to Milly like that," retorted Ian, not quite lightly. "She always follows your advice, you know. It--it's only scrabbles." He had left his chair and was leaning over the table, completely puzzled, first by Milly's terrified expression, then by what she had written, illegibly enough, across the two sheets of foolscap. He made out: "You are only miserab ..."--the words were interspersed with really illegible scrawls--"... Go ... go ... Let me ... I want to live, I want to ... Mild ..." Milly now wrote in her usual clear hand: "Who wrote that?" He scribbled with his pencil: "You." She replied in writing: "No. I know nothing about it." Lady Thomson had taken up the newspaper, a thing she never did except at odd minutes, although she contrived to read everything in it that was really worth reading. Folding it up and looking at her watch, she exclaimed: "A quarter of an hour before the carriage is round! Now don't go dawdling there, young people, and keep it standing in the sun." Milly stood up and gathered her writing-materials together. Aunt Beatrice's tall figure, its stalwart handsomeness disguised in uncouth garments, passed with its usual vigorous gait across the burning sunlight on the lawn and broad gravel walk, to disappear under the awning of a French window. Milly, very pale, had closed her eyes and her hands were clasped. She trembled, but her voice and expression were calm and even resolute. "The evil spirit is trying to get possession of me in another way now," she said. "But with God's help I shall be able to resist it." Ian too was pale and disturbed. It was to him as though he had suddenly heard a beloved voice calling faintly for help. "It's only automatic writing, dear," he replied. "You may not have been aware you were writing, but it probably reflects something in your thoughts." "It does not," returned she, firmly. "However miserable I may sometimes be, I could never wish to give up a moment of my life with you, my own husband, or to leave you and our child to the influence of this--this being." She stretched out her arms to him. "Please hold me, Ian, and will as I do, that I may resist this horrible invasion. I have a feeling that you can help me." He hesitated. "I, darling? But I don't believe--" She approached him, and took hold of him urgently, looking him in the eyes. "Won't you do it, husband dear? Please, for my sake, even if you don't believe, promise you'll will to keep me here. Will it, with all your might!"