'Who are you?' I asked with an effort.

A voice made answer, like the rustle of leaves: 'It is I ... I ... I ... I
have come for you.'

'For me? But who are you?'

'Come by night to the edge of the wood where there stands an old oak-tree.
I will be there.'

I tried to look closely into the face of the mysterious woman--and suddenly
I gave an involuntary shudder: there was a chilly breath upon me. And then
I was not lying down, but sitting up in my bed; and where, as I fancied,
the phantom had stood, the moonlight lay in a long streak of white upon the
floor.


II

The day passed somehow. I tried, I remember, to read, to work ...
everything was a failure. The night came. My heart was throbbing within me,
as though it expected something. I lay down, and turned with my face to the
wall.

'Why did you not come?' sounded a distinct whisper in the room.

I looked round quickly.

Again she ... again the mysterious phantom. Motionless eyes in a motionless