ght to appeal to.

There was nothing to do but to re-enter my rooms, where my attention was
immediately arrested by the sight of my wife sitting up in bed and
surveying me with a look of unmistakable astonishment.

"Who was that woman?" she asked. "And how came she in here?"

So she had seen her too.

"What woman, Lydia? I have not let in any woman. Did you think there was
a woman in this room?"

"Not in that room," she answered hoarsely, "but in this one. I saw her
just now passing through the folding doors. Wilbur, I am frightened.
See how my hands shake. Do you think I am sick enough to imagine
things?"

I knew she was not, but I did not say so. I thought it would be better
for her to think herself under some such delusion.

"You were dozing," said I. "If you had seen a woman here you could tell
me how she looked."

"And I can," my wife broke in excitedly. "She was like the ghosts we
read of, only that her dress and the veil or drapery she wore were all
grey. Didn't you see her? You must have seen her. She went right by
you--a grey woman, all grey; a lady, Wilbur, and slightly lame. Could I
have dreamed all that?"

"You must have!" I protested, shaking the door leading directly into the
hall so she might see it was locked, and even showing her the key to it
lying in its accustomed place behind the bureau cushion. Yet I was in no
satisfied condition myself, for she had described with the greatest
accuracy the very person I had myself seen. Had we been alike the
victims of a spiritual manifestation?

This was Tuesday. On Friday my question seemed to receive an answer. I
had been downtown, as usual, and on returning found a crowd assembled in
front of my lodging-house. A woman had been run over and was being
carried into our rooms. In the glimpse I caught of her I saw that she
was middle-aged and was wrapped in a long black cloak. Later this cloak
fell off, as her hat had done long before, and I perceived that her
dress was black and decent.

She was laid on our bed and every attention paid her. But she had been
grievously injured about the head and gradually but surely sank before
our eyes. Suddenly she roused and gave a look about her. It was a
remarkable one--a look of recognition and almost of delight. Then she
raised one hand and, pointing with a significant gesture into the empty
space before her, sank back and died.

It was a sudden ending, and, anxious to see its effect upon my wife, who
was stan