the back. By the light of the pale halo that encircled the
ghostly Presence, and moved with it, I could see the dark figure
of the living woman seated immovable in the chair. The
writing-case was on her lap, with the letter and the pen lying on
it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; her veiled head was now
bent forward. She looked as if she had been struck to stone in
the act of trying to rise from her seat.

A moment passed--and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the
living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested
the writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen
and wrote on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back
on the lap of the living woman. Still standing behind the chair,
it turned toward me. It looked at me once more. And now it
beckoned--beckoned to me to approach.

Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I
first saw her in the summer-house--drawn nearer and nearer by an
irresistible power--I approached and stopped within a few paces
of her. She advanced and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt
those strangely mingled sensations of rapture and awe, which had
once before filled me when I was conscious, spiritually, of her
touch. Again she spoke, in the low, melodious tones which I
recalled so well. Again she said the words: "Remember me. Come to
me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light in which she
stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight glimmering
between the curtains--and I saw no more. She had spoken. She had
gone.

I was near Miss Dunross--near enough, when I put out my hand, to
touch her.

She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a
dreadful dream.

"Speak to me!" she whispered. "Let me know that it is _you_ who
touched me."

I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her.

"Have you seen anything in the room?"

She answered. "I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen
nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap."

"Did you see the hand that lifted it?"

"No."

"Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it?"

"No."

"Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?"

"I saw it resting on my shoulder."

"Did you see writing on the letter, which was not _your_
writing?"

"I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am
sitting."

"Did it move?"

"It moved across the paper."

"As a pen moves in writing?"

"Yes. As a pen moves in writing."

"May I take the letter?"

She handed it to me.

"May I light a candle?"

She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in
silence.

I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the
writing.

There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it before
on the blank space in the sketch-book--there were the written
words which the ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged
once more in two lines, as I copy them here:

At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE KISS.

SHE had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I felt all
the old love, all the old devotion owning her power once more.
Whatever had mortified or angered me at our last interview was
forgiven and forgotten now. My whole being still thrilled with
the mingled awe and rapture of beholding the Vision of her that
had come to me for the second time. The minutes passed--and I


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