round her like a halo. She looked at
me with sorrowful and pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw
the apparition of her in the summer-house. She lifted her hand--not
beckoning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to me to
remain where I stood.

I waited--feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers as I looked at
her.

She moved; gliding from the window to the chair in which Miss Dunross
sat; winding her way slowly round it, until she stood at 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 lifte