The figure left the window, came nearer, silently, creepingly, with a hand raised for caution. She saw the face then, pinched and haggard, strangely altered with the curling frame of hair clipped close, but still Sybil’s. It was so extraordinary--such a gulf of unknown happenings lay between them--that at first they said nothing. In the spectral light they were like two ghosts come together in some debatable land beyond earth’s confines--too astonished at their encounter to find speech, too removed from the recognized and familiar to drop back to its facile communications. They stared, eye to eye, breath coming brokenly through parted lips, drawing together as if each were a magnet compelling the other. Anne spoke first. “Joe,” she said. “It’s Joe that’s dead.” “Yes. Do they know?” “They know nothing. They think it was you. It’s all over, Stokes has told. But, oh, what is it? I can’t understand--it’s like a fearful dream.” The words died away and a sudden violent trembling shook her. With the joints of her knees like water she sank on the side of the bed, gripping the other with her shaking hands, pulling her down beside her. “Tell me, tell me,” she implored. “Why is he dead? Why did he pretend he was you? What was he doing?” They sat, clinging together, two small huddled figures in the gray light. Though the house below was as silent as the tomb they spoke in subdued voices, question, answer, surmise. Each knew a different aspect of the story, brought her own knowledge of Joe’s motives and actions. In that whispered exchange they pieced together the separate facts, combined them in coherent sequence and came to a final enlightenment. Joe had met his death in his last effort as a police spy, his last effort to get the Parkinson reward. Leaving his room to come down and make ready for his departure, he had heard the voices of Stokes and Sybil in the living-room. Sybil remembered Stokes’ upward look and question about some one moving in the gallery--Joe creeping to concealment behind the arch. The nature of their conversation would have held him listening: here was his last opportunity to get the information he sought. He had heard the rendezvous in the summer-house. Its open situation offered no hiding-place outside, but knowing that it would be almost dark inside, he had conceived the idea of putting on his Sebastian costume and impersonating Sybil. He probably thought he risked no more than Stokes’ rage, and he also probably thought that he might escape before Stokes had discovered his identity.