server had noticed before on the three or four
occasions on which she had seen these phenomena, there was a strange
mask-like set of the features, as if the life that lay behind them had
not perfectly saturated that which expressed it. It was something
utterly different from the face of a dead person, yet also not
completely alive, though the eyes turned a little in their sockets,
and the young down-curved lips smiled. Behind her, plain between the
tossed-back curtains, was the figure of the medium sunk in sleep.

And so for a few seconds the apparition remained.

It seemed to the watcher that during those seconds the whole world was
still. Whether in truth the wind had dropped, or whether the absorbed
attention perceived nothing but the marvel before it, yet so it
seemed. Even the breathing of the medium had stopped; Lady Laura heard
only the ticking of the watch upon her own wrist.

Then, as once more a gust tore up from the south-west, the figure
moved forward a step nearer the table, coming with a motion as of a
living person, causing, it even appeared, that faint vibration on the
floor as of a living body.

She stood so near now, though with her back to the diffused light of
the ante-room, that her features were more plain than before--the
stained lips, the open eyes, the shadow beneath the nostrils and chin,
even the white fingers clasped across the breast. There was none of
that vague mistiness that had been seen once before in that room;
every line was as clear-cut as in the face of a living person; even
the swell of the breast beneath the hands, the slender sloping
shoulders, the long curved line from hip to ankle, all were real and
discernible. And once again the staring eyes of the watcher took in,
and her mind perceived, that slight mask-like look on the pretty
appealing face.

Once again the figure came forward, straight on to the table; and
then, so swift that not a motion or a word could check it, the
catastrophe fell.

There was a violent movement on Lady Laura's left hand, a chair shot
back and fell, and with a horrible tearing cry from the throat, the
boy dashed himself face forwards across the table, snatched at and for
an instant seized something real and concrete that stood there; and as
the two women sprang up, losing sight for an instant of the figure
that had been there a moment ago, the boy sank forward, moaning and
sobbing, and a crash as of a heavy body falling sounded from the
cabinet