He had left his chair and was leaning over the table, completely puzzled, first by Milly's terrified expression, then by what she had written, illegibly enough, across the two sheets of foolscap. He made out: "You are only miserab ..."—the words were interspersed with really illegible scrawls—"... Go ... go ... Let me ... I want to live, I want to ... Mild ..."
Milly now wrote in her usual clear hand: "Who wrote that?"
He scribbled with his pencil: "You."
She replied in writing: "No. I know nothing about it."
Lady Thomson had taken up the newspaper, a thing she never did except at odd minutes, although she contrived to read everything in it that was really worth reading. Folding it up and looking at her watch, she exclaimed:
"A quarter of an hour before the carriage is round! Now don't go dawdling there, young people, and keep it standing in the sun."
Milly stood up and gathered her writing-materials together. Aunt Beatrice's tall figure, its stalwart handsomeness disguised in uncouth garments, passed with its usual vigorous gait across the burning sunlight on the lawn and broad gravel walk, to disappear under the awning of a French window. Milly, very pale, had closed her eyes and her hands were clasped. She trembled, but her voice and expression were calm and even resolute.
"The evil spirit is trying to get possession of me in another way now," she said. "But with God's help I shall be able to resist it."
Ian too was pale and disturbed. It was to him as though he had suddenly heard a beloved voice calling faintly for help.
"It's only automatic writing, dear," he replied. "You may not have been aware you were writing, but it probably reflects something in your thoughts."