"There's nobody here, Roseye," I assured her. "You're alone with me." "Alone! Why, no. She's there--see straight over there!" cried my love, her face distorted by wild terror. "Ah! she's coming nearer!" she shrieked, again covering her face with her hands, as though to shut out the imaginary face. "Ugh!" she shuddered. "Don't let her touch me! Don't let her touch me! Don't, Claude--for Heaven's sake, I beg of you. That woman--that awful woman with the leopard's eyes!" "Come, come," I said, rather severely. "You must not give way to these hallucinations, Roseye. There's nobody here, I assure you. It's all--" "But she _is_ here!" she shrieked. "You can't deceive _me_; she's here--with us. Perhaps you can't see her--but I can. Oh! those horrible eyes--the fiend! Ah! what I have suffered!" I did not reply. I was at a loss how to act. Sight of my beloved betraying such abject terror unnerved me. Too well did I recollect the story of the railway signalman near Welwyn, how, when the night-express came out of the tunnel tearing north from London, he had distinctly seen two women struggling. One was in the grasp of the other. Was this the woman whom Roseye believed was present in my room--the mysterious Woman with the Leopard's Eyes? I crossed to the window, and standing at the spot where at my love declared she could see the mysterious female by which she seemed haunted, said: "Now, look, dear! There is nobody here." "There is!" she persisted. "She's there just behind you. Mind! She intends to do you harm! Yes," she added. "I saw her at Hendon. I remember, most distinctly! She knows you--and she means to do you harm!" I returned to her side, frantic at my inability to convince her that all was her imagination. There was no doubt that, deeply impressed upon her memory, was some recollection of terrifying events in which a mysterious woman had played a leading part. As I looked at that blank, yet horrified expression upon her pale, sweet face I became more than ever convinced that she had been held beneath the thraldom of some woman of evil intent--that woman whom she described as possessing the crafty eyes of a leopard. For a full half-hour I argued with her, endeavouring to calm her but, unfortunately, to little avail. Presently, however, her expression altered, she grew less agitated, until at last, as I sat holding her in my arms, I kissed her fondly upon the lips, and again begged: "Do tell me, my darling, where you have been all this long time? I've searched for you everywhere." "I--I don't know," was her blank reply. "I can't tell you." "But surely you recollect something?" I urged eagerly. "Those are not your own clothes that you are wearing. Where did you get them from?" She looked quickly down at her jersey and at her skirt, and then raised her eyes to me in dismay. Apparently, for the first time, she now realised that she was dressed in some one else's clothes.