d 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 stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking
only of her spoken words, "Remember me. Come to me;" looking only at her
mystic writing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's."

The month's end was still far off; the apparition of her had shown
itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trouble that was still in
the future. Ample time was before me for the pilgrimage to which I was
self-dedicated already--my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul's.
Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the right
understanding of the place to which they were bidden. Other men might
have wearied their memories by recalling the churches, the institutions,
the streets, the towns in foreign countries, all consecrated to
Christian reverence by the great apostle's name, and might have
fruitlessly asked themselves in which direction they were first to turn
their steps. No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the
one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. "Saint Paul's" meant the
famous Cathedral