One night, immediately after he had dined, he ran upstairs to his bedroom to fetch something. On coming out of his room again, what was his astonishment to see, walking in front of him, a tall young lady, very smartly dressed in the height of the prevailing fashion. She wore black satin, cut very low and without sleeves, and she moved very quietly along the passage, and proceeded to go downstairs. She never turned her elaborately coiffed head, and he could not see her face. He followed, too speechless with amazement to address her. Who on earth could she be? Where was she going? Nine o'clock at night; only two old servants in the house! In the depth of the country, and nine miles away from anywhere! And this charming young lady who so unexpectedly had made her appearance to brighten his solitude!
What a surprising adventure! The situation was piquant to say the least of it.
He followed immediately behind the attractive vision. He even wondered what room he would have prepared for her. So absolutely real did she look, that not for a second did he doubt she was ordinary flesh and blood.
When describing her afterwards to me he said, "I can assure you I saw the actual white flesh of her bare arms and shoulders. I was close behind her."
The lady moved composedly on, walking with supple grace and perfect self-possession. She was not in the least hurried or flustered. She reached the bottom of the stairs, and he had a momentary fear that she would make for the front door, where surely a Rolls Royce would be awaiting her. Not so! She walked straight into the dining-room. He followed.
As he entered the door she had gained the opposite end of the room, where the sideboard stood.
For a second she stood still, turned and glanced round at him with an enchanting smile of delicate raillery. Then she deliberately walked through the sideboard and wall beyond, and was lost to sight.
The beholder of this ghost had never seen anything of the sort before, and was, if anything, a disbeliever in psychic phenomena. He is a perfectly healthy, normal country gentleman, whose principal hobby is sport, and who prefers a country life out of doors to the life of an intellectual student.
Needless to say the occurrence puzzled him beyond measure. He could not "place" the lady, and was certain that he had never seen her before. Her dress proclaimed her to be absolutely modern.
Though in roundabout ways he tried to find out if any woman, answering to her description, was visiting at the time in any of the neighboring country houses, he failed entirely to get any result.