Milly shook her head, but the struggle with her hysterical sobs kept her silent. Lady Thomson walked to the window, feeling more "upset" than she had ever felt in her life. The window was open, but an awning shut out the view of the street. From the window-boxes, filled with pink geraniums and white stocks, a sweet, warm scent floated into the room, and the rattle of the milkman's cart, the chink of his cans, fell upon Lady Thomson's unheeding ears. So did voices in colloquy, but she did not particularly note a female one of a thin, chirpy quality, addressing the parlor-maid with a familiarity probably little appreciated by that elegantly decorous damsel. Milly had scarcely mastered her tears and Lady Thomson had just begun to address her in quiet, firm tones, when Tims burst unannounced into the room. Her hat was incredibly on one side, and her sallow face almost crimson with heat, but bright with pleasure at finding herself once more in Oxford. "Hullo, old girl!" she cried, blind to the serious scene into which she was precipitated. "How are you? Now don't kiss me"--throwing herself into an attitude of violent defence against an embrace not yet offered--"I'm too hot. Carried my bag myself all the way from the station and saved the omnibus." Lady Thomson fixed Tims with a look of more than usually cold disapproval. Milly proffered a constrained greeting. "Anything gone wrong?" asked Tims, after a minute, peering at Milly's tear-stained eyes with her own short-sighted ones. Milly answered with a forced self-restraint which appeared like cold deliberation. "Aunt Beatrice thinks I'm mad because I say I'm not the same person she found in my place last March. I want you to tell her that it's not just my fancy, but that you know that sometimes a quite different person takes my place, and I'm not responsible for anything she says or does." "Yes, that's a solemn Gospel fact, right enough," affirmed Tims. Lady Thomson could hardly control her indignation, but she did, although she spoke sternly to Tims. "Do I understand you to say, Miss Timson, that it's a 'solemn Gospel fact'--Gospel! Good Heavens--that Milly is possessed by a devil?" Tims plumped down on the sofa and stared at Lady Thomson. "Possessed by a devil? Good Lord, no! What do you mean?" "Mildred believes herself to be possessed by an evil spirit." Tims turned to Milly in consternation. "Milly, old girl! Come! Poor old Milly! I never thought you were so superstitious as all that. Besides, I know more about it than you do, and I tell you straight, you mayn't be quite such a good sort when you're in your other phase, but as to there being a devil in it--well, devil's all nonsense, but if that were so, I should like to have a devil myself, and the more the merrier." Milly turned on her a face pale with horror and indignation. Her eyes flashed and she raised a remonstrating hand.