"I don't know why there shouldn't be, I only know there isn't," she replied. "Why, the gift--for clairvoyance is a gift--is so rare that it is hardly surprising its very existence is disbelieved in. I know it-- at least, I mean--er--anybody can reason out the matter for themselves." The concluding words were lame and stammering, and the change from the firmness and decision of tone which had marked her utterances hitherto, as though she had suddenly found herself out in saying too much, could not but strike her hearers as strange, to say the least of it. To Raynier it suggested a new idea, which indeed came to him with a sort of mental start. But he came to the rescue. "Its existence is undoubted, though as rare as Miss Clive says. Why, that feeling that comes to us sometimes of having done or said some given thing before, or found ourselves in some given place, is a sort of an approach to the art, or gift, or whatever you like to call it." "Oh, I don't know what that is," said Mrs Tarleton. "Thank goodness that sort of thing doesn't come my way. But we've been talking about creepy things all the evening. I'm sure I shall dream. Ugh!" with a shiver. "What is it like outside?" It was time to separate for the night, but they lingered a while chatting in front of the tent. There was a very wildness of desolation in this sudden transition from light to darkness. All within the camp was silent, and away beyond, the loom of the hills was just discernible, black against the stars. The ghostly cry of a night bird echoed from the craggy height which overhung the camp, and far away over the plain a most weird and melancholy howling was borne upon the night wind. "That's a wolf--or wolves," said Haslam, his _shikari_ instincts metaphorically pricking up his ears. "Aren't you afraid, Miss Clive? There's nothing between you and them but a strip of canvas, all night through." Hilda laughed. "Afraid?" she repeated. "Why, this is positively delightful. It is such a contrast. Inside the tents--why, we might be in Mazaran, or even in London. Outside--the very ideal of savage wildness. Afraid? Why, I'm positively revelling in it. I like to hear that. Hark! There it is again. I'd like to see those wolves close--to watch them prowling for prey and doubling back and signalling to each other--if only I could get near enough to observe them without scaring them." "My goodness, child! Why, they'd eat you," said Mrs Tarleton. "Not they." And Hilda laughed again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I say, old chap," said Haslam, later, as Raynier lounged into his tent for another "peg" and a final smoke, "that's a strange sort of girl the Tarletons have picked up. Who is she? Do you know?" "No more than you do." "Well, there's something dashed uncanny about her. The way she talks-- there's something sort of creepy about it. Eh? And did you ever see such eyes as she's got? Eh?"