e before you go," he said, and with uncovered head the figure of
Charles knelt to the figure of Mivanway.

Really, ghosts could be exceedingly nice when they liked. Mivanway bent
graciously towards her shadowy suppliant, and, as she did so, her eye
caught sight of something on the grass beside it, and that something was
a well-coloured meerschaum pipe. There was no mistaking it for anything
else, even in that treacherous light; it lay glistening where Charles, in
falling upon his knees had jerked it from his breast-pocket.

Charles, following Mivanway's eyes, saw it also, and the memory of the
prohibition against smoking came back to him.

Without stopping to consider the futility of the action--nay, the direct
confession implied thereby--he instinctively grabbed at the pipe, and
rammed it back into his pocket; and then an avalanche of mingled
understanding and bewilderment, fear and joy, swept Mivanway's brain
before it. She felt she must do one of two things, laugh or scream and
go on screaming, and she laughed. Peal after peal of laughter she sent
echoing among the rocks, and Charles springing to his feet was just in
time to catch her as she fell forward a dead weight into his arms.

Ten minutes later the eldest Miss Evans, hearing heavy footsteps, went to
the door. She saw what she took to be the spirit of Charles Seabohn,
staggering under the weight of the lifeless body of Mivanway, and the
sight not unnaturally alarmed her. Charles's suggestion of brandy,
however, sounded human, and the urgent need of attending to Mivanway kept
her mind from dwelling upon problems tending towards insanity.

Charles carried Mivanway to her room, and laid her upon the bed.

"I'll leave her with you," he whispered to the eldest Miss Evans. "It
will be better for her not to see me until she is quite recovered. She
has had a shock."

Charles waited in the dark parlour for what seemed to him an exceedingly
long time. But at last the eldest Miss Evans returned.

"She's all right now," were the welcome words he heard.

"I'll go and see her," he said.

"But she's in bed," exclaimed the scandalised Miss Evans.

And then as Charles only laughed, "Oh, ah--yes, I suppose--of course,"
she added.

And the eldest Miss Evans, left alone, sat down and wrestled with the
conviction that she was dreaming.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

My work pressed upon me, but the louder it challenged me--such is the
heart of the timid fight