Then the girl herself spoke.

“The lake! The lake!” she cried.

Wilson stepped to her side. He placed a hand firmly upon her shoulder.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She lifted eyes as inscrutable as those of the image. They were slow moving and stared as blankly at him as at the pictures on the wall. He bent closer.

“Comrade––comrade––are you all right?”

Her lips moved to faint, incoherent mutterings. She did not seem to be in pain, and yet in travail of some sort.

The stranger, pale, his forehead beaded with the excitement of the moment, had tottered to his feet He seized Wilson’s arm almost roughly.

“Let her alone!” he commanded. “Can’t you see? Dios! the image speaks!”

“The image? have you gone mad?”

“No! No!” he ran on excitedly. “Listen!”

The girl’s brow was knitted. Her arms and limbs 46 moved restlessly. She looked like one upon the point of crying at being baffled.

46

“There is a mist, but I can see––I––I can see–––”

She gave a little sob. This was too much for Wilson. He reached for the image, but he had not taken a step before he heard the voice of the stranger.

“Touch that and I shoot.”

The voice was cold and steady. He half turned and saw that the man had regained his weapon. The hand that held it was steady, the eyes back of it merciless. For one moment Wilson considered the advisability of springing for him. But he regained his senses sufficiently to realize that he would only fall in his tracks. Even a wounded man is not to be trifled with when holding a thirty-two caliber revolver.

“Step back!”

Wilson obeyed.

“Farther!”

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