A few moments later, as he stood at the window in the parlour, looking at the waving elm-boughs and lazily wondering how the moon could be so bright when there were so many clouds, the soft swish of a woman's skirt sounded close to his ear. As he turned, the frightened "Oh!" and the little gasp of surprised femininity revealed Sarah, standing near the table in the centre of the room. Even at that distance and in the dark he was aware of a difference in her, a subtle element of personality not present before. "Did I frighten you?" he asked, coming nearer. "No, not very much. Only I thought nobody would be here. I--I--wanted some place to breathe in; it seems so tight and close in the house." As she spoke, a violent blast of wind drove the shutters against the side of the house and rubbed together the branches of the elm until they creaked dismally. She pressed her face against the glass and stared out into the dark. "Don't you love it?" she questioned, almost eagerly. Willard shook his head dubiously. "Don't know. Looks pretty cool. If it gets much higher, I shouldn't care to walk far." She took her old place by the table again, but soon left it, and wandered restlessly about the room. As she passed him he was conscious of a distinct physical impression--a kind of electric presence. She seemed to gather and hold about her all the faint light of the cold room, and the sweep of her skirt against his foot seemed to draw him toward her. Suddenly she stopped her irregular march. "Hear it sing!" she whispered. The now distinct voice of the wind grew to a long, minor wail, that rose and fell with rhythmic regularity. As she paused with uplifted finger near him, Willard felt with amazement a compelling force, a personality more intense, for the time, than his own. Then, as the blast, with a shriek that echoed for a moment with startling distinctness from every side, dashed the elm branches against the house itself, she turned abruptly and left the room. "Stay here!" she said shortly, and, resisting the impulse to follow her, he obeyed. In a few moments she returned with a heavy shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders. "Hold the window open for me," she said, "I'm going out." He attempted remonstrance, but she waved him impatiently away. "I can't get out of the door--mother's locked it and taken the key, but you can hold up the window while I get out. Oh, come yourself, if you like! But nothing can happen to me." Mechanically he held open the window as she slipped out, and, dragging his overcoat after him, scrambled through himself. She was waiting for him at the corner of the house, and as he stumbled in the unfamiliar shadows, held out her hand. "Here, take hold of my hand," she commanded. Her cool, slim grasp was strangely pleasant, as she hurried along with a smooth, gliding motion, wholly unlike her indifferent gait of the day before.