the Warden as he walked across to the farther end of the
room.

Gwen dared not look, but Lady Dashwood turned her head, supporting the
girl's head as she did so on her shoulder.

The Warden had reached the window. He opened the curtains and looked
behind them, then he pulled one sharply back, and into the lighted room
came a flood of pale moonlight, and through the chequered window panes
could be seen the moon herself riding full above a slowly drifting mass
of cloud.

"There is nothing in the room. If there were we should see it," said
Lady Dashwood quietly, and she turned the girl's face towards the
moonlight. "Look for yourself, Gwen. Your fears are quite foolish, my
dear, and you must try and control them."

So peremptory was Lady Dashwood's voice that the girl, still resting her
head on the protecting shoulder, slightly opened her eyelids and saw the
moonlight, the drawn curtains and the Warden standing looking back at
them.

"You can see for yourself that there is nothing here," he said.

It was true, there was nothing there--there wasn't _now_: and for the
first time Gwen was conscious of pain in her head and put up her hand.
There was a lump where she had knocked it, the lump was sore.

"Why, you have hurt your head, Gwen," said Lady Dashwood. "That explains
everything. A blow on the head is just the thing to make you think you
see something that isn't there! Come now, we'll go upstairs and put
something on that bruised head, and make it well again."

"I struck my head after I saw _it_," said Gwen, laying a stress upon the
word "it," averting her eyes from the moonlight and rising with the help
of Lady Dashwood.

"You may have thought so," said Lady Dashwood. "Come we mustn't stop
here. Dr. Middleton probably has letters to write. Jim, good night. I'm
sorry you have been so much disturbed, after a hard day's work."

The tone in which Lady Dashwood made her last remark and her manner in
leading Gwendolen out of the library, was that of a person who has
"closed" a correspondence, terminated an interview. The affair of the
scream and fright was over. It was a perfectly unnecessary incident to
have occurred in a sane working day, so she had apologised for its
intrusion. Why Gwendolen was in the library at all was a question that
was of no consequence. It certainly was not in search of a book on which
to spend the midnight oil. She _was_ there--that was all.

When they had gone, the Warden stood for som