credit my senses. Words failed me. Whereupon:

"Will you have tea or coffee for breakfast?" inquired Coates.

"Tea or coffee be damned, Coates!" I cried. "I'm going out to look at
those footprints! If you had seen what I saw last night, even your old
mahogany countenance would relax for once, I assure you."

"Indeed, sir," said Coates; "did you see the lady, then?"

"Lady!" I exclaimed, tumbling out of bed. "If the eyes that looked at
me last night belonged to a 'lady' either I am mad or the 'lady' is of
another world."

I pulled on a bath-robe and hurried out into the garden, Coates
showing me the spot where he had found the mysterious foot-prints. A
very brief examination sufficed to convince me that his account had
been correct. Some one wearing high-heeled shoes clearly enough had
stood there at some time whilst the soil was quite wet; and as no
track led to or from the marks, Coates' conclusion that the person who
had made them must have come over the hedge was the only feasible one.
I turned to him in amazement, but recognizing in time the wildly
fantastic nature of the sight which I had seen in the night, I
refrained from speaking of the blazing eyes and made my way to the
bathroom wondering if some chance reflection might not have deceived
me and the presence of a woman's footmarks at the same spot be no
more than a singular coincidence. Even so the mystery of their
presence there remained unexplained.

My thoughts were diverted from a trend of profitless conjecture when