"Yes--yes--of course I know that," said Savell feebly. "But can't they
be stopped?--can't something be done?"
"I intend to do something--to-morrow," said Olivant. "It's too late to
do anything to-night," he added, glancing at his watch. "Make your mind
easy, my friend; I'll see that sweet Barbara comes to no harm. And if by
any chance young Millard should come here, you'll understand that that's
only a ruse on his part, to throw you off the scent. You'll very
properly have him kicked out of the house."
I had been so intent upon what was happening in the room, and upon the
words that passed between the two men, that I had been totally unaware
of the fact that once again, as on another night I remembered, a shadow
had detached itself from the shadows of the garden, and that what seemed
to be a woman was leaning forward eagerly at the further end of the
terrace, watching and listening. She had not seen me; she had crept
forward step by step, and was staring into the lighted room. As Murray
Olivant moved with a shiver towards the window as if to close it, she
dropped back into the shadows, and was gone.
For a moment I stood there, staring after her, and vaguely calling to
mind the fashion in which I had seen her before, and the white face I
had seen looking into the room. Then, recovering myself, I started off
quickly in pursuit--hearing her moving swiftly over the dead leaves on
her way out of the grounds. Getting further away from the house, I
ventured to call to her to stop; but she hastened on more quickly,
breaking at last into a run, and finally disappearing among the trees. I
ran on blindly, and just when I thought I had lost her stumbled against
a figure standing quite still, and grasped it, and held to it. But this
was not a woman; it was a man, who cried out feebly to me to let him go,
and struggled in my grasp. It was Jervis Fanshawe.
"Some one ran past you--not a moment ago," I gasped. "A woman."
His face in the moonlight was ghastly white; I felt that he was
trembling from head to foot. "Did you see it too?" he gasped, holding to
me, and staring into my face.
I nodded. "Yes," I replied quickly. "Who was it?"
He shivered, and covered his face with his hands. "The dead come alive!"
he whispered.
I thought at first that he had been scared by the hurried flight of the
woman, or by my own calling to her in the darkness; above all, I was too
anxious concerning what I had to do, and concerning the fugitive, to
take much note of him. With an impatient exclamation I thrust him aside,
and ran on quickly out of the grounds; but when I came to the road
outside I saw that it lay like a grey streak under the light of the
moon, and was empty. A little frightened and shaken, I determined then
and there that there was but one thing to be done; I must find the boy,
and must tell him what had happened in regard to Barbara.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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