why -- hesitated from dread of frightening and distressing her -- called, at last, but not loudly enough to attract the driver's attention. The sound of the wheels grew fainter in the distance -- the cab melted into the black shadows on the road -- the woman in white was gone.

Ten minutes or more had passed. I was still on the same side of the way; now mechanically walking forward a few paces; now stopping again absently. At one moment I found myself doubting the reality of my own adventure; at another I was perplexed and distressed by an uneasy sense of having done wrong, which yet left me confusedly ignorant of how I could have done right. I hardly knew where I was going, or what I meant to do next; I was conscious of nothing but the confusion of my own thoughts, when I was abruptly recalled to myself -- awakened, I might almost say -- by the sound of rapidly approaching wheels close behind me.

I was on the dark side of the road, in the thick shadow of some garden trees, when I stopped to look round. On the opposite and lighter side of the way, a short distance below me, a policeman was strolling along in the direction of the Regent's Park.

The carriage passed me -- an open chaise driven by two men.

`Stop!' cried one. `There's a policeman. Let's ask him-'

The horse was instantly pulled up, a few yards beyond the dark place where I stood.

`Policeman!' cried the first speaker. `Have you seen a woman pass this way?'

`What sort of woman, sir?'

`A woman in a lavender-coloured gown --'

`No, no,' interposed the second man. `The clothes we gave her were found on her bed. She must have gone away in the clothes she wore when she came to us. In white, policeman. A woman in white.'

`I haven't seen her, sir.'

`If you or any of your men meet with the woman, stop her, and send her in careful keeping to that address. I'll pay all expenses, and a fair reward into the bargain.'

The policeman looked at the card that was handed down to him.

`Why are we to stop her, sir? What has she done?'

`Done! She has escaped from my Asylum. Don't forget; a woman in white. Drive on.'