had been petrified in the act of trying to rise from her seat.

Still

A moment passed-and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop over the living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her lap. It rested the writing-case on her shoulder. Its white fingers took the pen, and wrote on the unfinished letter. It put the writing-case back on the lap of the living woman. standing behind the chair, it turned towards me. It looked at me once more. And now it beckoned-beckoned to me to approach. Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved when I first saw her in the summer-house-drawn nearer and nearer by an irresistible power-I approached, and stopped within a few paces of her. She advanced, and laid her hand on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely-mingled sensations of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me when I was conscious,

spiritually, of her touch. Again she spoke, in the low melodious tones which I recalled so well. Again she said the words: 'Remember me. Come to me.' Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light in which she stood quivered, sank, vanished. I saw the twilight glimmering between the curtains -and I saw no more. She had spoken. She had gone.

I was near Miss Dunross-near enough, when I put out my hand, to touch her.

She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awakened from a dreadful dream.

'Speak to me!' she whispered.

Let me know that it is you who touched me.'

I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her.

'Have you seen anything in the room? ' She answered. I have been filled with a deadly fear. I have seen nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap.'

'Did

'No.'

you see the hand that lifted it?'

'Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in the light?'

'No.'

'Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from your lap?'

'I saw it resting on my shoulder.'

Did

you see writing on the letter, which

was not your writing?'

I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in which I am sitting.'

'Did it move?'

'It moved across the paper.'

In what direction did it move?'

'From right to left.'

As a pen moves in writing?'

'Yes. As a pen moves in writing.'

'May I take the letter?'

She handed it to me.

'May I light a candle?'

She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed in silence.

I lit the candle on the mantel-piece behind her, and looked for the writing.

There, on the blank space in the letteras I had seen it before on the blank space in the sketch-book-there were the written words which the ghostly Presence had left behind it; arranged once more in two lines, as I copy them here

AT THE MONTH'S END

IN THE SHADOW OF ST. PAUL'S.

61

CHAPTER V.

THE KISS.

SHE had need of me again.

She had claimed me again. I felt all the old love, all the old devotion, owning her power once more. Whatever had mortified or angered me at our last interview, was forgiven and forgotten now. My whole being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture of beholding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second time. The minutes passedand I stood by the fire like a man entranced; thinking only of her spoken words, 'Remember me. Come to me;' looking only at her mystic writing, 'At the month's end. In the shadow of St. Paul's.'