‘For me? But who are you?’
‘Come by night to the edge of the wood where there stands an old oak-tree. I will be there.’
I tried to look closely into the face of the mysterious woman—and suddenly I gave an involuntary shudder: there was a chilly breath upon me. And then I was not lying down, but sitting up in my bed; and where, as I fancied, the phantom had stood, the moonlight lay in a long streak of white upon the floor.
II
The day passed somehow. I tried, I remember, to read, to work ... everything was a failure. The night came. My heart was throbbing within me, as though it expected something. I lay down, and turned with my face to the wall.
‘Why did you not come?’ sounded a distinct whisper in the room.
I looked round quickly.
Again she ... again the mysterious phantom. Motionless eyes in a motionless face, and a gaze full of sadness.
‘Come!’ I heard the whisper again.
‘I will come,’ I replied with instinctive horror. The phantom bent slowly forward, and undulating faintly like smoke, melted away altogether. And again the moon shone white and untroubled on the smooth floor.