At the end of the week Mrs. Vanderbridge sent for me to write some letters, and when I went into her room, I found her lying on the couch with a tea table in front of her. She asked me to make the tea because she was still so weak, and I saw that she looked flushed and feverish, and that her eyes were unnaturally large and bright. I hoped she wouldn't talk to me, because people in that state are apt to talk too much and then to blame the listener; but I had hardly taken my seat at the tea table before she said in a hoarse voice—the cold had settled on her chest:
"Miss Wrenn, I have wanted to ask you ever since the other evening—did you—did you see anything unusual at dinner? From your face when you came out I thought—I thought—"
I met this squarely. "That I might have? Yes, I did see something."
"You saw her?"
"I saw a woman come in and sit down at the table, and I wondered why no one served her. I saw her quite distinctly."
"A small woman, thin and pale, in a grey dress?"
"She was so vague and—and misty, you know what I mean, that it is hard to describe her; but I should know her again anywhere. She wore her hair parted and drawn down over her ears. It was very dark and fine—as fine as spun silk."
We were speaking in low voices, and unconsciously we had moved closer together while my idle hands left the tea things.
"Then you know," she said earnestly, "that she really comes—that I am not out of my mind—that it is not an hallucination?"
"I know that I saw her. I would swear to it. But doesn't Mr. Vanderbridge see her also?"