Then I fancied I saw a woman's face, _her_ face, peering in, and was so obsessed by the notion that I went outside, but everything was so still that I persuaded myself I was mistaken." "Oh, is that what it was ?" Grant threw out his hands in a gesture that was eloquent of some feeling distinctly akin to despair.
"You don't usually speak in enigmas, Doris," he said.

"What in the world do you mean by saying:--'Oh, is that what it was ?'" The girl--she was only nineteen, and never before had aught of tragic mystery entered her sheltered life--seemed to recover her self-possession with a quickness and decision that were admirable.
"There is no enigma," she said calmly.

"My room overlooks your lawn.
Before retiring for the night I went to the window, just to have another peep at Sirius and its changing lights, so I could not help seeing you fling open the French windows, stand a little while on the step, and go in again." "Ah, you saw that?
Then I have one witness who will help to dispel that stupid policeman's notion that I killed Miss Melhuish, and hid her body in the river at the foot of the lawn, hid it with such care that the first passerby must find it." Every human being has three distinct personalities.

Firstly, there is the man or woman as he or she really is; secondly, there is the much superior individual as assessed personally; thirdly, and perhaps the most important in the general scheme of things, there is the same individuality as viewed by others.

For an instant, the somewhat idealized figure which John Menzies Grant offered to a pretty and intelligent but inexperienced girl was in danger of losing its impressiveness.