“Mistook some other——­” said MacIan, and words failed him altogether.

They sat for some moments in the mellow silence of the evening garden, a silence that was stifling for the sceptic, but utterly empty and final for the man of faith.  At last he broke out again with the words:  “Well, anyhow, if I’m mad, I’m glad I’m mad on that.”

Turnbull murmured some clumsy deprecation, and sat stolidly smoking to collect his thoughts; the next instant he had all his nerves engaged in the mere effort to sit still.

Across the clear space of cold silver and a pale lemon sky which was left by the gap in the ilex-trees there passed a slim, dark figure, a profile and the poise of a dark head like a bird’s, which really pinned him to his seat with the point of coincidence.  With an effort he got to his feet, and said with a voice of affected insouciance:  “By George!  MacIan, she is uncommonly like——­”

“What!” cried MacIan, with a leap of eagerness that was heart-breaking, “do you see her, too?” And the blaze came back into the centre of his eyes.

Turnbull’s tawny eyebrows were pulled together with a peculiar frown of curiosity, and all at once he walked quickly across the lawn.  MacIan sat rigid, but peered after him with open and parched lips.  He saw the sight which either proved him sane or proved the whole universe half-witted; he saw the man of flesh approach that beautiful phantom, saw their gestures of recognition, and saw them against the sunset joining hands.

He could stand it no longer, but ran across to the path, turned the corner and saw standing quite palpable in the evening sunlight, talking with a casual grace to Turnbull, the face and figure which had filled his midnights with frightfully vivid or desperately half-forgotten features.  She advanced quite pleasantly and coolly, and put out her hand.  The moment that he touched it he knew that he was sane even if the solar system was crazy.

She was entirely elegant and unembarrassed.  That is the awful thing about women—­they refuse to be emotional at emotional moments, upon some such ludicrous pretext as there being someone else there.  But MacIan was in a condition of criticism much less than the average masculine one, being in fact merely overturned by the rushing riddle of the events.

Evan does not know to this day what particular question he asked, but he vividly remembers that she answered, and every line or fluctuation of her face as she said it.

“Oh, don’t you know?” she said, smiling, and suddenly lifting her level brown eyebrows.  “Haven’t you heard the news?  I’m a lunatic.”

Then she added after a short pause, and with a sort of pride:  “I’ve got a certificate.”

Her manner, by the matchless social stoicism of her sex, was entirely suited to a drawing-room, but Evan’s reply fell somewhat far short of such a standard, as he only said:  “What the devil in hell does all this nonsense mean?”