"What knock, my darling?"

But even as I spoke I heard it, low and penetrating, and I stretched out
my arms imploringly towards Gladys; but she only smiled, and the knock
was repeated, and the whole scene dissolved around me, and I was sitting
up in bed in semi-darkness, while somebody was tapping with a quick
agitated touch at my door. I remembered then that I had forgotten to
unlock it before I went to bed, and I rose at once and made haste to
open it, not without a passing thrill of unpleasant conjecture as to
what might be behind it. It was a tall figure in a long grey garment,
who carried a lighted candle in his hand. For a moment, startled and
stupefied as I was, I failed to recognise the livid face.

"Canon Vernade! You are ill?"

Too ill to speak, it would seem, for without a word he staggered forward
and sank into a chair, letting the candle almost drop from his hand on
to the table beside him; but when I put out my hand to ring the bell, he
stayed me by a gesture. I looked at him, deadly pale, with blue shadows
about the mouth and eyes, his head thrown helplessly back, and then I
remembered some brandy I had in my dressing-bag. He took the glass from
me and raised it to his lips with a trembling hand. I stood watching
him, debating within myself whether I should disobey him by calling for
help or not; but presently, to my great relief, I saw the stimulant take
effect, and life come slowly surging back in colour to his cheeks, in
strength to his whole prostrate frame. He straightened himself a little,
and turned upon me a less distracted gaze than before.

"Mr. Lyndsay, there is something horrible in this house."

"Have you seen it?"

He shook his head.

"I saw nothing; it is what I felt."

He shuddered.

I looked towards the grate. The fire had long been out, but the wood was
still unconsumed, and I managed, inexpertly enough, to relight it. When
a long blue flame sprang up, he drew his chair near the hearth and
stretched towards the blaze his still tremulous hands.

"Mr. Lyndsay," he said, in a voice as strangely altered as his whole
appearance, "may I sit here a little--till it is light? I dread to go
back to that room. But don't let me keep you up."

I said, and in all honesty, that I had no inclination to sleep. I put on
my dressing-gown, threw a rug over his knees, and took my place opposite
to him on the other side of the fire; and thus we kept our strange
vigil, while slowly above us brok