I found Jack already dressed, since it was within a minute or two of seven when I got in, and sitting in the drawing-room. The day had been warm and muggy, but when I looked in on the way up to my room, it seemed to me to have grown suddenly and bitterly cold, not with the dampness of English frost, but with the clear and stinging exhilaration of such days as we had recently spent in Switzerland. Fire was laid in the grate but not lit, and I went down on my knees on the hearth-rug to light it. “Why, it’s freezing in here,” I said. “What donkeys servants are! It never occurs to them that you want fires in cold weather, and no fires in hot weather.” “Oh, for heaven’s sake don’t light the fire,” said he, “it’s the warmest muggiest evening I ever remember.” I stared at him in astonishment. My hands were shaking with the cold. He saw this. “Why, you are shivering!” he said. “Have you caught a chill? But as to the room being cold let us look at the thermometer.” There was one on the writing-table. “Sixty-five,” he said. There was no disputing that, nor did I want to, for at that moment, it suddenly struck us, dimly and distantly that It was “coming through.” I felt it like some curious internal vibration. “Hot or cold, I must go and dress,” I said. Still shivering, but feeling as if I was breathing some rarefied exhilarating air, I went up to my room. My clothes were already laid out, but, by an oversight, no hot water had been brought up, and I rang for my man. He came up almost at once, but he looked scared, or, to my already-startled senses, he appeared so. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “Nothing, sir,” he said, and he could hardly articulate the words. “I thought you rang.” “Yes. Hot water. But what’s the matter?” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I thought I saw a lady on the stairs,” he said, “coming up close behind me. And the front door bell hadn’t rung that I heard.” “Where did you think you saw her?” I asked. “On the stairs. Then on the landing outside the drawing-room door, sir,” he said. “She stood there as if she didn’t know whether to go in or not.” “One--one of the servants,” I said. But again I felt that It was coming through. “No, sir. It was none of the servants,” he said. “Who was it then?” “Couldn’t see distinctly sir, it was dim-like. But I thought it was Mrs Lorimer.” “Oh, go and get me some hot water,” I said. But he lingered; he was quite clearly frightened. * * * * * At this moment the front-door bell rang. It was just seven, and already Philip had come with brutal punctuality while I was not yet half-dressed. “That’s Dr Enderly,” I said. “Perhaps if he is on the stairs you may be able to pass the place where you saw the lady.”