Mr. Penthorn had opened the gate, and was walking briskly up the path. He was our doctor; a gray-haired man, active and lively, and very friendly with us all. He had looked in, in passing back to the village, to tell the Rector that a parishioner, to whom he had been called up in the night, was in danger. "I'll go and see her," said papa. "You'd be none the worse for a cup of coffee, Penthorn. It is sharp weather." "Well, perhaps I shouldn't," said he, sitting down by me, while Tom went off to the kitchen for a cup and saucer. "Sharp enough--but seasonable. Is anything amiss with you, Leah? Indigestion again?" This caused us to look at Leah. She was whiter than the table-cloth. "No, sir; I'm all right," answered Leah, as she took the cup from Tom's hand and began to fill it with coffee and hot milk. "Something that the master has been telling us scared me a bit at the moment, that's all." "And what was that?" asked the Doctor lightly. So the story had to be gone over again, papa repeating it rather more elaborately. Mr. Penthorn was sceptical, and said it was a dream. "I have just called it a dream," assented my father. "But, in one sense, it was certainly not a dream. I had not been dreaming at all, to my knowledge; have not the least recollection of doing so. I woke up fully in a moment, with the voice ringing in my ears." "The voice must have been pure fancy," declared Mr. Penthorn. "That it certainly was not," said the Rector. "I never heard a voice more plainly in my life; every tone, every word was distinct and clear. No, Penthorn; that someone spoke to me is certain; the puzzle is--who was it?" "Someone must have got into your room, then," said the Doctor, throwing his eyes suspiciously across the table at Tom. Leah turned sharply round to face Tom. "Master Tom, if you played this trick, say so," she cried, her voice trembling. "I! that's good!" retorted Tom, as earnestly as he could speak. "I never got out of bed from the time I got into it. Wasn't likely to. I never woke up at all." "It was not Tom," interposed papa. "How could Tom assume my late wife's voice? It _was_ her voice, Penthorn. I had never heard it since she left us; and it has brought back all its familiar tones to my memory." The Doctor helped himself to some bread and butter, and gave his head a shake. "Besides," resumed the Rector, "no one else ever addressed me as she did--'Eustace.' I have not been called Eustace since my mother died, many years ago, except by her. My present wife has never called me by it." That was true. Mrs. Strange had a pet name for him, and it was "Hubby." "'I am coming for you, Eustace,' said the voice. It was her voice; her way of speaking. I can't account for it at all, Penthorn. I can't get it out of my head, though it sounds altogether so ridiculous."