And as she, literally not believing the evidence of her senses, stared at the two immobile figures, her eyes became focussed on the face of the woman standing to Varick’s right.  There was a coarse beauty in the mask-like-looking countenance, but it was a beauty now instinct with a kind of stark ferocity and rage.

At last she slowly concentrated her gaze on the other luminous figure.  Though swathed from neck to heel in what Blanche told herself, with a peculiar feeling of horror, were old-fashioned grave-clothes, the second woman yet looked more real, more alive, than the other.  Her face, if deadly pale, was less mask-like, and the small, dark eyes gleamed, while the large, ill-shaped mouth seemed to be quivering.

And then, all at once, the form to Varick’s right began to dissolve—­to melt, as it were, into the green-grey and blue tapestry which hung across the farther wall of the hall.

But while this curious phenomenon took place, the woman swathed in her grave-clothes remained quite clearly visible....

Suddenly Helen Brabazon started to her feet; she uttered a loud and terrible cry—­and at that same moment Blanche saw the more living and sinister of the two apparitions also become disintegrated, and quickly dissolve into nothingness.

Lionel Varick leapt from his chair.  His face changed from a placid gravity to one of surprise and distress.  “What is it?” he cried, coming forward.  “What is it, Miss Brabazon—­Helen?”

The girl whom he addressed fell back into her chair.  She covered her face with her hands.  Twice she opened her lips and tried to speak—­in vain.  At last she gasped out, “It’s all right now.  I’ll be better in a minute.”

“But what happened?” exclaimed Varick.  “Did anything happen?”

“I think I must have gone to sleep without knowing it—­for I’ve had a terrible, terrible—­nightmare!”

Miss Burnaby got up slowly, deliberately, from her chair near the fire.  She also came up to her niece.

“You were working up to the very moment you cried out,” she said positively.  “I had turned round and I was watching you—­when suddenly you jumped up and gave that dreadful cry.”

“Do tell us what frightened you,” said Varick solicitously.

“Please don’t ask me what I saw—­or thought I saw; I would rather not tell you,” Helen said in a low voice.

“But of course you must tell us!” Miss Burnaby roused herself, and spoke with a good deal of authority.  “If you are not well you ought to see a doctor, my dear child.”

Helen burst into bitter sobs.  “I thought I saw Milly, Mr. Varick—­poor, poor Milly!  She looked exactly as she looked when I last saw her, in her coffin, excepting that her eyes were open.  She was standing just behind you—­and oh, I shall never, never forget her look!  It was a terrible, terrible look—­a look of hatred.  Yet I cared for her so much!  You know I did all that was possible for one woman to do for another during those few weeks that I knew her?”