wore a fancy dress which she proposed to use afterwards at a
dance, and one of the objects of the rubbing they were about to make,
was that she might study the details more carefully. At least, that was
her object. Godfrey's was to obtain an impression of the crabbed
inscription at the foot of the effigy.

There she stood, tall and imposing, her arms folded on her young
breast, the painted lights striking full on her broad, intellectual
forehead and large grey eyes, shining too in a patch of crimson above
her heart. Lost in thought and perfectly still, she looked strange
thus, almost unearthly, so much so that the impressionable and
imaginative Godfrey, seeing her suddenly from the shadow, halted,
startled and almost frightened.

What did she resemble? What might she not be? he queried to himself.
His quick mind suggested an answer. The ghost of some lady dead ages
since, killed, for there was the patch of blood upon her bosom,
standing above the tomb wherein her bones crumbled, and dreaming of
someone from whom she had been divorced by doom and violence.

He sickened a little at the thought; some dread fell upon him like a
shadow of Fate's uplifted and pointed finger, stopping his breath and
causing his knees to loosen. In a moment it was gone, to be replaced by
another that was nearer and more natural. He was to be sent away for a
year, and this meant that he would not see Isobel for a year. It would
be a very long year in which he did not see Isobel. He had forgotten
that when his father told him that he was to go to Switzerland. Now the
fact was painfully present.

He came on up the long nave and Isobel, awakening, saw him.

"You are late," she said in a softer voice than was usual to her.
"Well, I don't mind, for I have been dreaming. I think I went to sleep
upon my feet. I dreamed," she added, pointing to the brass, "that I was
that lady and--oh! all sorts of things. Well, she had her day no doubt,
and I mean to have mine before I am as dead and forgotten as she is.
Only I would like to be buried here. I'll be cremated and have my ashes
put under that stone; they won't hurt her."

"Don't talk like that," he said with a little shiver, for her words
jarred upon him.

"Why not? It is as well to face things. Look at all these monuments
about us, and inscriptions, a lot of them to young people, though now
it doesn't matter if they were old or young. Gone, every one of them
and quite forgotten, though some were