I STOOD on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of SaintAnthony's Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view of Edinburghand of the old Palace of Holyrood, bathed in the light of thefull moon.

The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, wasbehind the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front of theruin, partly to recover my breath after ascending the hill;partly, I own, to master the nervous agitation which the sense ofmy position at that moment had aroused in me. The woman, or theapparition of the woman--it might be either--was perhaps within afew yards of the place that I occupied. Not a living creatureappeared in front of the chapel. Not a sound caught my ear fromany part of the solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole attentionon the beauties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. Mymind was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. Mymind was with the woman whom I had seen in the summer-housewriting in my book.

I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps more overthe broken ground brought me within view of the Well, and of thehigh boulder or rock from the foot of which the waters gushedbrightly in the light of the moon.

She was there.

I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the rock,with her hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. Irecognized her face as she looked up quickly, startled by thesound of my footsteps in the deep stillness of the night.

Was it the woman, or the apparition of the woman? I waited,looking at her in silence.

She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysterious soundthat I had heard in the summer-house. It was the sound I hadheard on the bridge when we first met in the dim evening light.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. "_You_ here!"she went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable surprise . "Whatdoes this mean?"

"I am here," I answered, "to meet you, by your own appointment."

She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The moonlightshone full upon her face. There was terror as well asastonishment in her eyes while they now looked at me.

"I don't understand you," she said. "I have not seen you sinceyou spoke to me on the bridge."

"Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you--or the appearance ofyou--since that time. I heard you speak. I saw you write."

She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingledresentment and curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. "What didI write?"

"You said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 'When the fullmoon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' "

"Where?" she cried. "Where did I do that?"

"In a summer-house which stands by a waterfall," I answered. "Doyou know the place?"

Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror burstfrom her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at her side. Ihurriedly approached her, in the fear that she might fall on thestony ground.

She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" sheexclaimed. "Stand back, sir. You frighten me."

I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You know who I am.Can you doubt my interest in you, after I have been the means ofsaving your life?"

Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced withouthesitation, and took me by the hand.

"I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not soungrateful as I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir--I was madwith misery when I tried to drown myself. Don't distrust me!Don't despise me!" She stopped; I saw the tears on her cheeks.With a sudden contempt for herself, she dashed them away. Herwhole tone and manner altered once more. Her reserve returned;she looked at me with a strange flash of suspicion and defiancein her eyes. "Mind this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, "youwere dreaming when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't seeme; you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiarwords to a stranger like you? It's all your fancy--and you try tofrighten me by talking of it as if it was a real thing!" Shechanged again; her eyes softened to the sad and tender look whichmade them so irresistibly beautiful. She drew her cloak round herwith a shudder, as if she felt the chill of the night air. "Whatis the matter with me?" I heard her say to herself. "Why do Itrust this man in my dreams? And why am I ashamed of it when Iwake?"

That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her knowthat I had overheard her last words.

"If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," I said."Do me justice now; give me your confidence. You are alone--youare in trouble--you want a friend's help. I am waiting to helpyou."

She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange creaturedrew it away with a cry of alarm: her one great fear seemed to bethe fear of letting me touch her.

"Give me time to think of it," she said. "You don't know what Ihave got to think of. Give me till to-morrow; and let me write.Are you staying in Edinburgh?"

I thought it wise to be satisfied--in appearance at least--withthis concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on it in pencil theaddress of the hotel at which I was staying. She read the card bythe moonlight when I put it into her hand.

"George!" she repeated to herself, stealing another look at me asthe name passed her lips. " 'George Germaine.' I never heard of'Germaine.' But 'George' reminds me of old times." She smiledsadly at some passing fancy or remembrance in which I was notpermitted to share. "There is nothing very wonderful in yourbeing called 'George,' " she went on, after a while. "The name iscommon enough: one meets with it everywhere as a man's name Andyet--" Her eyes finished the sentence; her eyes said to me, "I amnot so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called'George.' "

So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery!

If I had only asked her what associations she connected with myChristian name--if I had only persuaded her to speak in thebriefest and most guarded terms of her past life--the barrierbetween us, which the change in our names and the lapse of tenyears had raised, must have been broken down; the recognitionmust have followed. But I never even thought of it; and for thissimple reason--I was in love with her. The purely selfish idea ofwinning my way to her favorable regard by taking instantadvantage of the new interest that I had awakened in her was theone idea which occurred to my mind.

"Don't wait to write to me," I said. "Don't put it off tillto-morrow. Who knows what may happen before to-morrow? Surely Ideserve some little return for the sympathy that I feel with you?I don't ask for much. Make me happy by making me of some serviceto you before we part to-night."

I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. The wholewoman seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand lay unresistingly inmine; her charming figure came by soft gradations nearer andnearer to me; her head almost touched my shoulder. She murmuredin faint accents, broken by sighs, "Don't take advantage of me. Iam so friendless; I am so completely in your power." Before Icould answer, before I could move, her hand closed on mine; herhead sunk on my shoulder: she burst into tears.

Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have respectedher at that moment. I put her hand on my arm and led her awaygently past the ruined chapel, and down the slope of the hill.

"This lonely place is frightening you," I said. "Let us walk alittle, and you will soon be yourself again."

She smiled through her tears like a child.

"Yes," she said, eagerly. "But not that way." I had accidentallytaken the direction which led away from the city; she begged meto turn toward the houses and the streets. We walked back towardEdinburgh. She eyed me, as we went on in the moonlight, withinnocent, wondering looks. "What an unaccountable influence youhave over me!" she exclaimed.

"Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my name, before we metthat evening at the river?"

"Never."

"And I never heard _your_ name, and never saw _you_ before.Strange! very strange! Ah! I remember somebody--only an oldwoman, sir--who might once have explained it. Where shall I findthe like of her now?"

She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evidentlybeen dear to her. "A relation of yours?" I inquired--more to keepher talking than because I felt any interest in any member of herfamily but herself.

We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it was decreedthat we were to advance no further.

"Don't ask me about my relations!" she broke out. "I daren'tthink of the dead and gone, in the trouble that is trying me now.If I speak of the old times at home, I shall only burst outcrying again, and distress you. Talk of something else, sir--talkof something else."

The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was not clearedup yet. I took my opportunity of approaching the subject.

"You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me," I began."Tell me your dream."

"I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was somethingelse," she answered. "I call it a dream for want of a betterword."

"Did it happen at night?"

"No. In the daytime--in the afternoon."

"Late in the afternoon?"

"Yes--close on the evening."

My memory reverted to the doctor's story of the shipwreckedpassenger, whose ghostly "double" had appeared in the vessel thatwas to rescue him, and who had himself seen that vessel in adream.

"Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" I asked.

She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It was the daywhen my mother and I had visited the waterfall. It was the hourwhen I had seen the apparition in the summer-house writing in mybook!

I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. We had walked by thistime nearly as far on the way back to the city as the old Palaceof Holyrood. My companion, after a glance at me, turned andlooked at the rugged old building, mellowed into quiet beauty bythe lovely moonlight.

"This is my fa vorite walk," she said, simply, "since I have beenin Edinburgh. I don't mind the loneliness. I like the perfecttranquillity here at night." She glanced at me again. "What isthe matter?" she asked. "You say nothing; you only look at me."

"I want to hear more of your dream," I said. "How did you come tobe sleeping in the daytime?"

"It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as wewalked on again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I felt myhelpless condition keenly on that day. It was dinner-time, Iremember, and I had no appetite. I went upstairs (at the innwhere I am staying), and lay down, quite worn out, on my bed. Idon't know whether I fainted or whether I slept; I lost allconsciousness of what was going on about me, and I got some otherconsciousness in its place. If this was dreaming, I can only sayit was the most vivid dream I ever had in my life."

"Did it begin by your seeing me?" I inquired.

"It began by my seeing your drawing-book--lying open on a tablein a summer-house."

"Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?"

She described not only the summer-house, but the view of thewaterfall from the door. She knew the size, she knew the binding,of my sketch-book--locked up in my desk, at that moment, at homein Perthshire!

"And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you remember what youwrote?"

She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were ashamed torecall this part of her dream.

"You have mentioned it already," she said. There is no need forme to go over the words again. Tell me one thing--when _you_ wereat the summer-house, did you wait a little on the path to thedoor before you went in?"

I _had_ waited, surprised by my first view of the woman writingin my book. Having answered her to this effect, I asked what shehad done or dreamed of doing at the later moment when I enteredthe summer-house.

"I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering tones."If you had been my brother, I could hardly have treated you morefamiliarly. I beckoned to you to come to me. I even laid my handon your bosom. I spoke to you as I might have spoken to my oldestand dearest friend. I said, 'Remember me. Come to me.' Oh, I wasso ashamed of myself when I came to my senses again, andrecollected it. Was there ever such familiarity--even in adream--between a woman and a man whom she had only once seen, andthen as a perfect stranger?"

"Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the time whenyou lay down on the bed to the time when you found yourself awakeagain?"

"I think I can tell you," she replied. "It was the dinner-time ofthe house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. Not longafter I had come to myself I heard a church clock strike thehour. Reckoning from one time to the other, it must have beenquite three hours from the time when I first lay down to the timewhen I got up again."

Was the clew to the mysterious disappearance of the writing to befound here?

Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am inclined tothink that it was. In three hours the lines traced by theapparition of her had vanished. In three hours she had come toherself, and had felt ashamed of the familiar manner in which shehad communicated with me in her sleeping state. While she hadtrusted me in the trance--trusted me because her spirit was thenfree to recognize my spirit--the writing had remained on thepage. When her waking will counteracted the influence of hersleeping will, the writing disappeared. Is this the explanation?If it is not, where is the explanation to be found?

We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate streetin which she lodged. We stopped at the door.