wonderful sensation of lightness and power began to steal over me.

Suddenly the door opened and the inn-keeper's daughter came in. By all
ordinary standards, her's was a charming country loveliness, born of the
stars and wild-flowers, of moonlight shining through autumn mists upon
the river and the fields; yet, by contrast with the higher order of
beauty I had just momentarily been in touch with, she seemed almost
ugly. How dull her eyes, how thin her voice, how vapid her smile, and
insipid her whole presentment.

For a moment she stood between me and the occupant of the window seat
while I counted out the small change for my meal and for her services;
but when, an instant later, she moved aside, I saw that the settle was
empty and that there was no longer anyone in the room but our two
selves.

This discovery was no shock to me; indeed, I had almost expected it, and
the man had gone just as a figure goes out of a dream, causing no
surprise and leaving me as part and parcel of the same dream without
breaking of continuity. But, as soon as I had paid my bill and thus
resumed in very practical fashion the thread of my normal consciousness,
I turned to the girl and asked her if she knew the old man who had been
sitting in the window seat, and what he had meant by the Wood of the
Dead.

The maiden started visibly, glancing quickly round the empty room, but
answering simply that she had seen no one. I described him in great
detail, and then, as the description grew clearer, she turned a little
pale under her pretty sunborn and said very gravely that it must have
been the ghost.