"Where is L'Ombre?" he asked, vaguely troubled.
She rose; he followed her across the bridge and along the mossy border of the moat. Presently she stood still and pointed down in silence.
For a while he saw nothing in the moat; then, suspended midway between surface and bottom, motionless in the transparent water, a shadow, hanging there, colourless, translucent—a phantom vaguely detached from the limpid element through which it loomed.
L'Ombre lay very still in the silvery-grey depths where the glass of the stream reflected the façade of that ancient house.
Around the angle of the moat crept a ripple; a rat appeared, swimming, and, seeing them, dived. L'Ombre never stirred.
An involuntary shudder passed over Neeland, and he looked up abruptly with the instinct of a creature suddenly trapped—but not yet quite realizing it.
In the grey forest walling that silent place, in the monotonous sky overhead, there seemed something indefinitely menacing; a menace, too, in the intense stillness; and, in the twisted, uplifted limbs of every giant tree, a subtle and suspended threat.
He said tritely and with an effort: "For everything there are natural causes. These may always be discovered with ingenuity and persistence.... Shall we examine your clocks, Madame?"
"Yes.... Will your General be annoyed because I have asked that an officer be sent here? Tell me truthfully, are you annoyed?"
"No, indeed," he insisted, striving to smile away the inexplicable sense of depression which was creeping over him.