Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/668

 "Glad?" he echoed, dreamily. "Glad! I have seen her ghost!"

"Pooh, man—don't be foolish!" I said. "Come—you must make an effort, and throw off this childishness. You're getting positively hysterical, too!"

"I have seen her ghost," he repeated, slowly. "I am not hysterical. I was crossing the common, in the bright sunshine, and I saw her in the distance; she was coming towards me; she was wearing that grey health-waterproof and hat of hers. She continued to advance until she was as near to me as that table in the next room—and then she was gone!"

"Gone?"

"Vanished—disappeared—gone! Harry, she did not fall down a pit (she was on the hard road), nor jump behind a tree. There was no object larger than a tussock of grass within fifty feet of her, all round. She vanished!"

"I shall get the doctor to come and see you," I said, putting on my boots.

"Go to him, if you like," said my brother. "On the way you will pass her house. Go in and ask after her."

I went. Amy told me that Phoebe had gone by herself for a walk on the common, and was not in yet, although it was past lunch-time.

Phoebe was never seen again. We searched for her for five months, and then I insisted on my aunt's shutting up the house and going, with Amy, to Switzerland. I took them to Lugano, settled them in a villa with a lovely view over the town and the valley and lake, and away to Monte Caprino and Monte Boglia; and then I returned to my brother.

His mind was unhinged, and I was forced to place him under the care of a doctor. I constantly went to see him, and we would take long walks together in all weathers. One day we were returning from a long tramp, and were hurrying home to avoid a thunderstorm which was imminent, when I stopped a moment to light my pipe, and he, walking on, got some twenty yards ahead of me. The light was perfectly clear yet, and I was starting again with my eyes fixed upon his back, when—he was not there! I stopped with a jerk and rubbed my eyes; then I ran to the spot where he had been walking a moment ago. There was no