"Johanna Meyer," answered someone mechanically, for they did not seem to
have taken the trouble to look at me. As I listened to those words my
heart, which had stood still waiting for the answer, beat again with a
sudden bound that I could hear in the silence.

I looked up. There, advancing from the doorway of one of the houses,
very slowly, as though overpowered by weakness, and leading by the hand
a mere skeleton of a child, who was chewing some leaves, I saw--I saw
_Marie Marais!_ She was wasted to nothing, but I could not mistake her
eyes, those great soft eyes that had grown so unnaturally large in the
white, thin face.

She too saw me and stared for one moment. Then, loosing the child, she
cast up her hands, through which the sunlight shone as through
parchment, and slowly sank to the ground.

"She has gone, too," said one of the men in an indifferent voice. "I
thought she would not last another day."

Now for the first time the man at the head of the grave turned. Lifting
his hand, he pointed to me, whereon the other two men turned also.

"God above us!" he said in a choked voice, "at last I am quite mad.
Look! there stands the spook of young Allan, the son of the English
predicant who lived near Cradock."

As soon as I heard the voice I knew the speaker.

"Oh, Mynheer Marais!" I cried, "I am no ghost, I am Allan himself come
to save you."