The first few times I saw her just as I have said. I would look up and find the phantasm there, sitting in her chair. And it would disappear suddenly when Donald left the room. Then I knew I was alone.
But as I grew used to its presence, or perhaps as it grew used to mine and found out that I was not afraid of it, that indeed I loved to have it there, it came, I think, to trust me, so that I was made aware of all its movements. I would see it coming across the room from the doorway, making straight for its desired place, and settling in a little curled-up posture of satisfaction, appeased, as if it had expected opposition that it no longer found. Yet that it was not happy, I could still see by its look at Donald. _That_ never changed. It was as uncertain of him now as she had been in her lifetime.
Up till now, the sixth or seventh time I had seen it, I had no clue to the secret of its appearance; and its movements seemed to me mysterious and without purpose. Only two things were clear: it was Donald that it came for—the instant he went it disappeared; and I never once saw it when I was alone. And always it chose this room and this hour before the lights came, when he sat doing nothing. It was clear also that he never saw it.
But that it was there with him sometimes when I was not I knew; for, more than once, things on Donald’s writing-table, books or papers, would be moved out of their places, though never beyond reach; and he would ask me whether I had touched them.
“Either you lie,” he would say, “or I’m mistaken. I could have sworn I put those notes on the left-hand side; and they aren’t there now.”
And once—that was wonderful—I saw, yes, I _saw_ her come and push the lost thing under his hand. And all he said was, “Well, I’m—I could have sworn—”
For whether it had gained a sense of security, or whether its purpose was now finally fixed, it began to move regularly about the room, and its movements had evidently a reason and an aim.
One evening we were all there in our places, Donald silent in his chair and I in mine, and it seated in its attitude of wonder and of waiting, when suddenly I saw Donald looking at me.
“Helen,” he said, “what are you staring for like that?”