It was an extraordinary sensation—­vivid, uncanny, terrifying—­the more so that Sylvia Bailey not only believed herself to be alone in the house, but supposed Anna to be far from Lacville....

Fortunately, this unnerving and terrifying impression of an unseen and yet real presence did not endure; and, as she focussed her eyes on the open book she held in her hand, it became fainter and fainter, while she realised, with a keen sense of relief, what it was that had brought the presence of her absent friend so very near to her.

There, actually lying open before her, between two leaves of the little note-book, was a letter signed by Anna Wolsky!  It was a short note, in French, apparently an answer to one Madame Wachner had sent reminding her of her engagement.  It was odd that the Wachners had said nothing of this note, for it made Anna’s conduct seem stranger than ever.

Opposite the page on which lay the little letter, Monsieur Wachner had amused himself by trying to imitate Anna’s angular handwriting.

Sylvia tore out one of the blank pages, and then she put the note-book and its enclosure back on the table.  She felt vaguely touched by the fact that the Wachners had kept her friend’s last letter; they alone, so she reminded herself, had been really sorry and concerned at Anna’s sudden departure from the place.  They also, like Sylvia herself, had been pained that Madame Wolsky had not cared to say good-bye to them.

She scribbled a few lines on the scrap of paper, and then, quickly making her way to the dining-room, she placed her unconventional invitation on the round table, and went out into the hall.

As she opened the front door of the Chalet des Muguets Sylvia was met by a blast of hot air.  She looked out dubiously.  She was thoroughly unnerved—­as she expressed it to herself, “upset.”  Feeling as she now felt, walking back through the heat would be intolerable.

For the first time Lacville became utterly distasteful to Sylvia Bailey.  She asked herself, with a kind of surprise, of self-rebuke, why she was there—­away from her own country and her own people?  With a choking sensation in her throat she told herself that it would be very comfortable to see once more the tall, broad figure of Bill Chester, and to hear his good, gruff English voice again.

She stepped out of the house, and put up her white parasol.

It was still dreadfully hot, but to the left, across the lawn, lay the cool depths of the chestnut wood.  Why not go over there and rest in the shade?

Hurrying across the scorched grass to the place where there was an opening in the rough hedge, she found herself, a moment later, plunged in the grateful green twilight created by high trees.

It was delightfully quiet and still in the wood, and Sylvia wondered vaguely why the Wachners never took their tea out there.  But foreigners are very law-abiding, or so she supposed, and the wood, if a piece of no-man’s land, was for sale.  Up a path she could see the back of a large board.