"Do you want to get to the house?
I can put you across to it if you wish," he said in a loud voice, addressing the unknown--"otherwise you'll have to go a long way round." No answer--only an intensity of silence, through which he heard from a great distance a church clock striking.

The wood and all its detail had vanished in profound shadow.
Conscious of a curious excitement he rowed still further in to the bank, and again spoke to the invisible woman.

In vain.

He began then to doubt his own eyes.

Had it been a mere illusion produced by some caprice of the searchlight opposite?
But the face!--the features of it were stamped on his memory, the gaunt bitterness of them, the brooding misery.
How could he have imagined such a thing?
Much perplexed and rather shaken in nerve, he rowed back across the pond--to hear the band tuning in the flower-filled drawing-room, as he approached the house..