utely
vital then. It all seems so meaningless and impossible now. And yet,
although I am utterly played out and done for, and however absurd it may
sound, I wouldn't have lost it; I wouldn't go back for any bribe there
is. I feel just as if a great bundle had been rolled off my back. Of
course, the queerest, the most detestable part of the whole business
is that it--the thing on the stairs--was this'--he lifted a grave and
haggard face towards her again--'or rather that,' he pointed with his
stick towards the starry churchyard. 'Sabathier,' he said.

Again they had paused together before the white gate, and this time
Lawford pushed it open, and followed his companion up the narrow path.

She stayed a moment, her hand on the bell. 'Was it my brother who
actually put that horrible idea into your mind?--about Sabathier?'

'Oh no, not really put it into my head,' said Lawford hollowly. 'He only
found it there; lit it up.'

She laid her hand lightly on his arm. 'Whether he did or not,' she said
with an earnestness that was almost an entreaty, 'of course, you MUST
agree that we every one of us have some such experience--that kind
of visitor, once at least, in a lifetime.' 'Ah, but,' began Lawford,
turning forlornly away, 'you didn't see, you can't have realized--the
change.'

She pulled the bell almost as if in some inward triumph. 'But don't you
think,' she suggested, 'that that, like the other, might be, as it were,
partly imagination too? If now you thought back.'

But a little old woman had opened the door, and the sentence, for the
moment, was left unfinished.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There was no one in the room, and no light, when they entered. For a
moment Grisel stood by the open window, looking out. Then she turned
impulsively. 'My brother, of course, will ask you too,' she said; 'we
had made up our minds to do so if you came again; but I want you to
promise me now that you won't dream of going back to-night. That surely
would be tempting--well, not Providence. I couldn't rest if I thought
you might be alone; like that again.' Her voice died away into the
calling of the waters. A light moved across the dingy old rows of books
and as his sister turned to go out Herbert appeared in the doorway,
carrying a green-shaded lamp, with an old leather quarto under his arm.

'Ah, here you are,' he said. 'I guessed you had probably met.' He drew
up, burdened, before his visitor. But his clear black glance, instead of