"That I might have? Yes, I did see something."
"You saw her?"
"I saw a woman come in and sit down at the table, and I wondered why no
one served her. I saw her quite distinctly."
"A small woman, thin and pale, in a grey dress?"
"She was so vague and--and misty, you know what I mean, that it is hard
to describe her; but I should know her again anywhere. She wore her hair
parted and drawn down over her ears. It was very dark and fine--as fine
as spun silk."
We were speaking in low voices, and unconsciously we had moved closer
together while my idle hands left the tea things.
"Then you know," she said earnestly, "that she really comes--that I am
not out of my mind--that it is not an hallucination?"
"I know that I saw her. I would swear to it. But doesn't Mr.
Vanderbridge see her also?"
"Not as we see her. He thinks that she is in his mind only." Then after
an uncomfortable silence, she added suddenly, "She is really a thought,
you know. She is his thought of her--but he doesn't know that she is
visible to the rest of us."
"And he brings her back by thinking of her?"
She leaned nearer while a quiver passed over her features and the flush
deepened in her cheeks. "That is the only way she comes back--the only
way she has the power to come back--as a thought.
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