l here for
her."

"Mistook some other----" said MacIan, and words failed him altogether.

They sat for some moments in the mellow silence of the evening garden,
a silence that was stifling for the sceptic, but utterly empty and final
for the man of faith. At last he broke out again with the words: "Well,
anyhow, if I'm mad, I'm glad I'm mad on that."

Turnbull murmured some clumsy deprecation, and sat stolidly smoking to
collect his thoughts; the next instant he had all his nerves engaged in
the mere effort to sit still.

Across the clear space of cold silver and a pale lemon sky which was
left by the gap in the ilex-trees there passed a slim, dark figure, a
profile and the poise of a dark head like a bird's, which really pinned
him to his seat with the point of coincidence. With an effort he got
to his feet, and said with a voice of affected insouciance: "By George!
MacIan, she is uncommonly like----"

"What!" cried MacIan, with a leap of eagerness that was heart-breaking,
"do you see her, too?" And the blaze came back into the centre of his
eyes.

Turnbull's tawny eyebrows were pulled together with a peculiar frown of
curiosity, and all at once he walked quickly across the lawn. MacIan sat
rigid, but peered after him with open and parched lips. He saw the sight
which either proved him sane or proved the whole universe half-witted;
he saw the man of flesh approach that beautiful phantom, saw their
gestures of recognition, and saw them against the sunset joining hands.

He could stand it no longer, but ran across to the path, turned the
corner and saw standing quite palpable in the evening sunlight, talking
with a casual grace to Turnbull, the face and figure which had filled
his midnights with frightfully vivid or desperately half-forgotten
features. She advanced quite pleasantly and coolly, and put out her
hand. The moment that he touched it he knew that he was sane even if the
solar system was crazy.

She was entirely elegant and unembarrassed. That is the awful thing
about women--they refuse to be emotional at emotional moments, upon some
such ludicrous pretext as there being someone else there. But MacIan was
in a condition of criticism much less than the average masculine one,
being in fact merely overturned by the rushing riddle of the events.

Evan does not know to this day what particular question he asked, but
he vividly remembers that she answered, and every line or fluctuation of
her face as she s