"Indeed, your ladyship is not going to do anything of the kind," said Slight hastily. "Besides, my friend has gone. There is another way from the cloister chamber, remember. And your ladyship has just got to come back to the house." Lady Dashwood sighed impatiently. Slight had been her own servant for nearly forty years, and she knew the dogged obstinacy of the man. She knew his sterling honesty, too, and how faithful he could be to a trust. "Very well," she said. "If there is anything to tell me, you will tell it in your own way. But that voice startled me--it was like a voice from the grave. It was as if my boy had come back to me once more. Slight, if you are deceiving me----" "I'm not deceiving anybody," Slight said in an aggrieved voice. "I leave that to my betters. If your ladyship will lean on my arm, I will try to ease your foot as much as possible. The shortest way is to cut across the grass." It was rather a slow process, for Lady Dashwood's foot was getting painful. She came at length to the great stone doorway leading from the forecourt into the house; she looked back over her shoulder, and as she did so she grew almost rigid. "Look!" she whispered. "What did I tell you? Don't you see it, Slight--the figure standing over there by the laurels in the moonlight? See, the rays on his face. Don't tell me that my eyes deceive me, Slight. It is my boy come back again." Slight muttered something under his breath. In reality he was objurgating Ralph Darnley for his careless imprudence in standing there with his face turned to the dower house. Yet the old man's frame never moved a muscle. "What does your ladyship mean?" he asked. "I can see nothing." "That is because you are not looking in the right direction, Slight. Over there by the laurels. Do you dare to tell me that a man is not standing there? It is my son Ralph come back from the grave! The fine figure, the gracious open face, the determined eyes. Has time stood still with him that he looks so young? And yet it is forty years since. . . . Ralph, Ralph, it is your mother who calls to you." The words rang out with startling stillness in the great cloister. The young man standing there started and turned round. He had been absolutely lost in a deep study, contemplating the old house. He came tumbling down to earth again, and became conscious of a white-haired, richly-dressed old lady who was holding out a pair of arms in his direction. He could see the pleading, loving look on her face, he noticed the menace and anger in Slight's eyes. Without further ado Ralph stepped back into the bushes, his feet making no sound on the mosy turf. It was like the slow diminishing of a dream. "He has gone," Lady Dashwood cried. "I have frightened him by my notice. Did you not see him, Slight? Did you not observe the extraordinary likeness?"