He saw with extraordinary vividness the low panelled room; the still listening face; the white muslin shoulders and dark hair; and the eyes that seemed to recall some far-off desolate longing for home and childhood. It was all a dream. That was the end of the matter. Even now, perhaps, his tired old stupid body was lying hunched up, drenched with dew upon the little old seat under the mist-wreathed branches. Soon it would bestir itself and wake up and go off home—home to Sheila, to the old deadly round that once had seemed so natural and inevitable, to the old dull Lawford—eyes and brain and heart. They returned up the dark shallow staircase to Herbert’s book-room, and he talked on to very quiet and passive listeners in his own fantastic endless fashion. And ever and again Lawford would find himself intercepting fleeting and anxious glances at his face, glances almost of remorse and pity; and thought he detected beneath this irresponsible contradictory babble an unceasing effort to clear the sky, to lure away too pressing memories, to put his doubts and fears completely to rest. Herbert even went so far as to plead guilty, when Grisel gave him the cue, of having a little heightened and overcoloured his story of the restless phantasmal old creature that haunted their queer wooden hauntable old house. And when they rose, laughing and yawning to take up their candles, it was, after all, after a rather animated discussion, with many a hair-raising ghost story brought in for proof between brother and sister, as to exactly how many times that snuff-coloured spectre had made his appearance; and, with less unanimity still, as to the precise manner in which he was in the habit of making his precipitant exit. ‘You do at any rate acknowledge, Grisel, that the old creature does appear, and that you saw him yourself step out into space when you were sitting down there under the willow shelling peas. I’ve seen him twice for certain, once rather hazily; Sallie saw him so plainly she asked his business: that’s five. I resign.’ ‘Acknowledge!’ said Grisel; ‘of course I do. I’d acknowledge anything in the world to save argument. Why, I don’t know what I should do without him. If only, now Mr Lawford would give him a fair chance to show himself reading quietly here about ten minutes to one, or shelling peas even, if he prefers it. If only he’d stay long enough for _that_. Wouldn’t it be the very thing for them both!’ ‘Of course,’ said Herbert cordially, ‘the very thing.’ Lawford looked up at neither of them. He shook his head.