There were the body and out-stretched limbs of one who had cast himself supine in sorest weariness, ready for the grave which had found him.

The vision flickered, and faded and revived, and faded again, while, in his wonder forgetting for one brief moment the cries that had roused him, the laird stood and gazed.

It was the strangest, ghostliest thing he had ever seen! Surely he was on the point of discovering some phenomenon hitherto unknown! What Grizzie would have taken it for, unhappily we do not know, for, just as the laird heard her footsteps on the stair, and he was himself starting to cross the frozen space between, the light, which had been gradually paling, suddenly went out.

With its disappearance he bethought himself, and hurried towards the great door, with Grizzie now at his heels.
He opened it.

All was still.