"Who are you?" Travers demanded. The question had left his lips almost without his knowledge. She turned and looked at him, and in spite of the veil he felt the full intensity of a gaze which seemed to be seeking his very soul. How long they stood there watching each other in breathless silence Travers did not know. Nor did he know why this strange, powerless figure filled him with a sickening repulsion and held him paralyzed so that he could only wait in passive, motionless expectation. Suddenly the hand sank to her side and he shook himself as though he had been awakened from a nightmare. "Who are you?" he repeated firmly. "You are not the one I seek," she answered. "Why do you keep me from him? He is mine--my very own. Where is he? I am always seeking for him--but he is like the shadows--he vanishes--with the sunshine. In my dreams I see him--" Her voice, thin and low-pitched, died into silence. She seemed to have shrunk together; she swayed as though she would have fallen, and Travers took an involuntary step toward her. "You speak English--perfect English," he said. "Who are you? Whom do you seek? Perhaps I can help you--?" His words electrified her. She caught his arm in a grip of iron and drew close to him so that her hot, quickly drawn breath fanned his cheek. "Help me?" she whispered. "Who can help me? Don't you know that I am dead?" Travers shuddered; he tried to free himself from the clutch of the white, bloodless hand, but she clung to him desperately, despairingly, while her voice rose in an agonized crescendo. "Don't you know that I am _dead?_" Footsteps came hurrying down the corridor. A sudden impulse, a reawakening of the spirit of action and enterprise, which had carried him through his life, bade him grasp her hand and drag from it the loosely fitting ring. "I will see you again--dead or living, I will help you," he said. The next instant he drew quickly back. A white-bearded native servant had entered and was moving swiftly with cat-like stealth toward the veiled figure by the window. He was breathless, as though with hard running, and seemed oblivious of Travers' presence until, with an exclamation of relief, he had grasped the unresisting figure by the wrist. Then he turned, salaaming profoundly. "May the Lord Sahib forgive his servant!" he said with a humility which in Travers' ears rang curiously ironical. "The woman is possessed of a devil who speaketh lies out of her mouth. It would cost thy servant dear if she were found with the Lord Sahib." Travers assumed an air of indifference. "Who is she?" he asked carelessly. "My wife, Lord Sahib. The devil has possessed her these many years."