“None,” the control answered. Then, with much more emphasis, “None.”

But hardly had the alleged Anne Heathcote spoken, when far away in the distance came the sound of footsteps. Tap, tap, tap!

“Why! By Jove!” Brown shouted, “there she is! I recognise her step. I should know it in a million.”

For a minute everyone was silent, the tapping growing more and more audible. Then Madame Valenspin, in quite her own voice, exclaimed excitedly: “Let us be going. The spirits tell me we mustn’t remain here any longer. Let’s go back by the fields.”

She fumbled with the latchet of the gate, against which she had been leaning, and hurriedly tried to raise it.

Mrs. de Roscovi said nothing, but gripped her husband by the arm. The steps approached rapidly, and presently the same dainty form, Brown had previously seen when with Reynolds, once more figured on the horizon.

“It is—it is she!” Brown whispered. “Look—the waist, the arms, the hands, the shoes. Silver buckles! How they flash!”

An exclamation of horror interrupted him. It was from Mr. de Roscovi. He had moved to one side of the road, dragging his wife with him, and the two were standing huddled together, their eyes fixed in a frenzied stare at the phantom’s neck. Brown, forcing his attention away from[37] the long slim hands which so fascinated him, followed their glances. The neck was not as he remembered it, white and slender as far as it went, but it ended abruptly in a grey nothingness, and beyond this nothingness Brown fancied he discern