It must surely be a ghost or spiritual manifestation of some kind which moved in this silent way.

In order to see and hear better, I softly moved back the folding grille, opened the French window, and stepped out, bare-footed and pyjama-clad as I was, on the marble terrace.

How cold the wet marble was! How heavy smelled the rain-laden garden! It was as though the night and the damp, and even the moonlight, were drawing the aroma from all the flowers that blossomed.

The whole night seemed to exhale heavy, half-intoxicating odours! I stood at the head of the marble steps, and all immediately before me was ghostly in the extreme--the white marble terrace and steps, the white walks of quartz-sand glistening under the fitful moonlight; the shrubs of white or pale green or yellow,--all looking dim and ghostly in the glamorous light; the white statues and vases.

And amongst them, still flitting noiselessly, that mysterious elusive figure which I could not say was based on fact or imagination.