"I don't see why I shouldn't tell you," yet she hesitated. "It was poor Milly, Sir Lyon—I mean Mrs. Lionel Varick. She and I became great friends during the weeks preceding her death. She even told me that, apart from her husband, she had never cared for anyone as she grew to care for me. And yet—oh, Sir Lyon, what was so very, very terrible just now, was that I felt her looking at me with a kind of hatred in her dead face," and, as she uttered these last words, an expression of deep pain came over Helen Brabazon's countenance.
Sir Lyon then asked a rather curious question: "How was the apparition clothed?"
"In her shroud. A woman in Redsands made it. I saw the woman about it—perhaps that impressed it on my mind," her mouth quivered. "The figure standing there was exactly like Milly dead, excepting that her eyes seemed alive, and that there was that dreadful look of anger on her face."
"How long did the vision last?"
"Oh, not a whole minute altogether! When I first saw it I got up, and without knowing what I was doing, I screamed; and then she, Milly, seemed to fade away—to melt into the air.
"Did anyone else see anything?" asked Sir Lyon eagerly.
"No, I don't think so. In fact, I'm quite sure not. My aunt was sitting with her back to Mr. Varick."
There was a pause. And then Helen asked: "You don't believe that the dead can appear to the living—do you, Sir Lyon?"
"I've never been able quite to make up my mind," he said slowly. "But I do believe, absolutely, in what is now called materialization. I must believe in it, because I've witnessed the phenomena a number of times myself. But, of course, always under a most carefully prepared set of conditions. I wish you'd tell me," he went on, "exactly how the figure struck you? Can you describe to me in greater detail the appearance of what seemed to be the spirit of your friend?"
Helen did not quite understand what he meant, but she answered obediently: "It's very difficult to describe more exactly what I did see. As I told you just now, the eyes alone seemed to be really alive in the pale, waxen-looking face, and I thought the mouth quivered."