"What did you see out there? Are they coming?"
"I saw very little," Paredes answered. "It was too dark."
"You saw something," Doctor Groom rumbled.
Paredes nodded. He looked at the floor.
"A—a woman in black."
"By the lake!" Bobby cried.
"Not as far as the lake. It was near the empty grave."
Silas Blackburn commenced to shake again. The doctor's little eyes were wider.
"It was a woman—a flesh-and-blood woman?" Robinson asked.
"If it was a ghost," Paredes answered, "it had the power of attack; but that, as you'll recall, is by no means unusual here. That's why I've come in rather against my will. It seems strange, but I, too, have been struck by a sharp and slender object, and I thought, perhaps, the doctor had better look at the result."