Then in an instant the climax came, and this is what she saw.

* * * * *

The commotion of the curtains ceased suddenly, and they hung in straight folds from roof to floor of the little cabinet.  Then they gently parted—­she saw the long fingers that laid hold of them—­and the form of a person came out, descended the single step, and stood on the floor before her eyes, in the plain candlelight, not four steps away.

It was the figure of a young girl, perfectly formed in all its parts, swathed in some light stuff resembling muslin that fell almost to the feet and shrouded the upper part of the head.  Her hands were clasped across her breast, her bare feet were visible against the dark floor, and her features were unmistakably clear.  There was a certain beauty in the face—­in the young lips, the open eyes, and the dark lines of the brows over them; and the complexion was waxen, clear as of a blonde.  But, as the observer had noticed before on the three or four occasions on which she had seen these phenomena, there was a strange mask-like set of the features, as if the life that lay behind them had not perfectly saturated that which expressed it.  It was something utterly different from the face of a dead person, yet also not completely alive, though the eyes turned a little in their sockets, and the young down-curved lips smiled.  Behind her, plain between the tossed-back curtains, was the figure of the medium sunk in sleep.

And so for a few seconds the apparition remained.

It seemed to the watcher that during those seconds the whole world was still.  Whether in truth the wind had dropped, or whether the absorbed attention perceived nothing but the marvel before it, yet so it seemed.  Even the breathing of the medium had stopped; Lady Laura heard only the ticking of the watch upon her own wrist.

Then, as once more a gust tore up from the south-west, the figure moved forward a step nearer the table, coming with a motion as of a living person, causing, it even appeared, that faint vibration on the floor as of a living body.

She stood so near now, though with her back to the diffused light of the ante-room, that her features were more plain than before—­the stained lips, the open eyes, the shadow beneath the nostrils and chin, even the white fingers clasped across the breast.  There was none of that vague mistiness that had been seen once before in that room; every line was as clear-cut as in the face of a living person; even the swell of the breast beneath the hands, the slender sloping shoulders, the long curved line from hip to ankle, all were real and discernible.  And once again the staring eyes of the watcher took in, and her mind perceived, that slight mask-like look on the pretty appealing face.

Once again the figure came forward, straight on to the table; and then, so swift that not a motion or a word could check it, the catastrophe fell.