“She is only one,” she said; “and there are so many. Why, of all, is it she to return and haunt us? What has happened? What does it presage?”
“Hush!” said Gilead. “You must not give way. That is for me to discover. Tell me—did she ever give you her address?”
“O, yes! It is in the York Road, not far from Waterloo Station. I have it written down. I will fetch it for you.”
He glanced about him when he was left alone. This room, so warm and fragrant and quiet! Its intimacy was to count henceforth among the ghosts of lost and vanished things. He had been haunted and doubly haunted this night; but the spectre of a hopeless passion—he recognized it now, had come to realize it in a moment—was the spirit potent above all others to possess and absorb a man. In its shadow all lesser visitations sank into insignificance.
“Are you not frightened?” said the girl, as, returning, she put the address into his hand.
“No,” he said, with a smile. “There is nothing necessarily terrifying in this. Psychists will tell you that intense desire may, and often does, manifest itself in bodily shape to its object. What more likely than that Miss Fleming, being seized with an ungovernable wish to consult you, flew astrally to the one spot she associated with your presence?”
“O! I hope so,” she answered earnestly. “I hope it is nothing worse than that. You are not going there to-night?”
“Yes, to-night.”
“But—”
“It would be unadvisable, cruel, to delay. I had better see her, if possible, at once—at least learn what I can of her movements.”