"Gone," Wrayson answered. "I am sorry, but I did my best. He went away at daylight. I saw him off, but I could not keep him."
"Where to?" she asked. "You know that, at least."
He pointed towards the distant coast line.
"In that direction! That is all I know."
"He told you nothing before he went?" she asked eagerly.
"Nothing at all," he answered. "He refused to discuss what had happened. Sit down, Louise," he added firmly. "I want to talk to you."
He placed a chair for her under the trees. She sank into it a little wearily.
"A certain measure of ignorance," he said, "I am willing to put up with, but when you exhibit such extraordinary interest in another man, I really feel that my limit has been reached. Who is he, Louise? You must tell me, please!"
"I wish I could tell you," she answered. "I wish I could say that I knew. Half the night the three of us have talked and wondered. I have heard plenty of theories as to a second life on some imaginary planet, but I never heard of the dead who lived again here, in this world!"
He looked puzzled.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that he was like some one whom you believed to be dead?"
She was silent for a moment. The sun was hot even where they sat, but he fancied that he saw her shiver. She looked into his face, and something of the terror of the night before was in her eyes.
"To us," she said slowly, "to Madame de Melbain and to me, he was a ghost, an actual apparition. He
