suggest my wife to me, although it was she. I might have been watching an animal, vague, yet purposeful of mind, tracing out some hidden thing, following out some instinct quite foreign to humanity. I remember that presently I involuntarily clasped my hands together, and felt that they were very cold. Perspiration broke out on my face. I was painfully, unnaturally moved, and a violent desire to be away from this white moving thing came over me. Walking as softly as I could, I went to my dressing-room, shut the door, and sat down on a chair. I never remember to have felt thoroughly unnerved before, but now I found myself actually shaken, palsied. I could understand how deadly a thing fear is. I lit a candle hastily, and as I did so a knock came to the door.
Margot’s voice said, “May I come in?” I felt unable to reply, so I got up and admitted her.
She entered smiling, and looking such a child, so innocent, so tender, that I almost laughed aloud. That I, a man, should have been frightened by a child in a white dress, just because the twilight cast a phantom atmosphere around her! I held her in my arms, and I gazed into her blue eyes.
She looked down, but still smiled.
“Where have you been, and what have you been doing?” I asked gaily.
She answered that she had been in the drawing-room since tea-time.
“You came here straight from the drawing-room?” I said.
She replied, “Yes.”
Then, with an indifferent air which hid real anxiety, I said:
“By the way, Margot, have you been into that room again—the room you fancied you recollected?”
“No, never,” she answered, withdrawing herself from my arms. “I don’t wish to go there. Make haste, Ronald, and dress. It is nearly dinner-time, and I am ready.” And she turned and left me.
She had told me a lie. All my feelings of uneasiness and discomfort returned tenfold.
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