a pail on the stairs?' For the stair to the next floor almost
faced the library door. But--no; I rubbed my eyes and looked again;
the soapy water theory gave way. The wavy something that kept gliding,
rippling in, gradually assumed a more substantial appearance. It
was--yes, I suddenly became convinced of it--it was ripples of soft
silken stuff, creeping in as if in some mysterious way unfolded or
unrolled, not jerkily or irregularly, but glidingly and smoothly, like
little wavelets on the sea-shore.

"And I sat there and gazed. 'Why did you not jump up and look behind the
door to see what it was?' you may reasonably ask. That question I cannot
answer. Why I sat still, as if bewitched, or under some irresistible
influence, I cannot tell, but so it was.

"And it--came always rippling in, till at last it began to rise as
it still came on, and I saw that a figure--a tall, graceful woman's
figure--was slowly advancing, backwards of course, into the room, and
that the waves of pale silk--a very delicate shade of pearly gray I
think it must have been--were in fact the lower portion of a long
court-train, the upper part of which hung in deep folds from the lady's
waist. She moved in--I cannot describe the motion, it was not like
ordinary walking or stepping backwards--till the whole of her figure
and the clear profile of her face and head were distinctly visible, and
when at last she stopped and stood there full in my view just, but only
just beyond the door, I saw--it came upon me like a flash--that she was
no stranger to me, this mysterious visitant! I recognised, unchanged it
seemed to me since the day, ten years ago, when I had last seen her, the
beautiful features of Maud Bertram."

Mr. Marischal stopped a moment. Nobody spoke. Then he went on again.

"I should not have said 'unchanged.' There was one great change in the
sweet face. You remember my telling you that one of my girl-friend's
greatest charms was her bright sunny happiness--she never seemed gloomy
or depressed or dissatisfied, seldom even pensive. But in this respect
the face I sat there gazing at was utterly unlike Maud Bertram's. Its
expression, as she--or 'it'--stood there looking, not towards me, but
out beyond, as if at some one or something outside the doorway, was of
the profoundest sadness. Anything _so_ sad I had never seen in a human
face, and I trust I never may. But I sat on, as motionless almost as
she, gazing at her fixedly, with no desire, n