cobweb, heavy with dust, hung across the doorway. This did no
great credit to Paul's stewardship, but was, perhaps, a slight
relief to me. Nor could I see a trace of anything uncanny outside
the house. When Severance went with me, next day, the coast was
equally clear, and I was glad to have cured him so easily.

Unfortunately, it did not last. A few days after, there was a
brilliant sunset, after a storm, with gorgeous yellow light
slanting everywhere, and the sun looking at us between bars of
dark purple cloud, edged with gold where they touched the pale
blue sky; all this fading at last into a great whirl of gray to
the northward, with a cold purple ground. At the height of the
show, I climbed the wall to my favorite piazza, and was surprised
to find Severance already there.

He sat facing the sunset, but with his head sunk between his
hands. At my approach, he looked up, and rose to his feet. "Do
not deceive me any more," he said, almost savagely, and pointed
to the window.

I looked in, and must confess that, for a moment, I too was
startled. There was a perceptible moment of time during which it
seemed as if no possible philosophy could explain what appeared
in sight. Not that any object showed itself within the great
drawing-room, but I distinctly saw--across the apartment, and
through the opposite window--the dark figure of a man about my
own size, who leaned against the long window, and gazed intently
on me. Above him spread the yellow sunset light, around him the
birch-boughs hung and the ivy-tendrils swayed, while behind him
there appeared a glimmering water-surface, across which slowly