"What frightened you, Gwen?" asked Lady Dashwood. "No harm can come to you—we are by you. Pull yourself together and speak plainly and quietly."
Gwen uttered some half-incoherent sounds—one only being intelligible to the two who were bending over her.
"A man!" said the Warden, glancing round with surprise.
"No man is in the room," said Lady Dashwood. "Did he go out? Did you see him go out?"
Gwen raised her face slightly.
"No. At the end there—looking!" and again she burst into uncontrollable sobs.
The Warden released his arm and walked to the farther end of the room, and Gwen grasped Lady Dashwood's arm and clung to her. The two women could hear the Warden as he walked across to the farther end of the room.
Gwen dared not look, but Lady Dashwood turned her head, supporting the girl's head as she did so on her shoulder.
The Warden had reached the window. He opened the curtains and looked behind them, then he pulled one sharply back, and into the lighted room came a flood of pale moonlight, and through the chequered window panes could be seen the moon herself riding full above a slowly drifting mass of cloud.
"There is nothing in the room. If there were we should see it," said Lady Dashwood quietly, and she turned the girl's face towards the moonlight. "Look for yourself, Gwen. Your fears are quite foolish, my dear, and you must try and control them."