, doctor, that I could make you feel the horror of it!" said Sir
Henry, bending forward and looking into my eyes. "Three months ago I no
more believed in visitations, in apparitions, in so-called ghosts, than
you do. Were you tried as I am, your scepticism would receive a severe
shock. Now let me tell you what occurs. Night after night Lady Studley
and I retire to rest at the same hour. We say good-night, and lay our
heads on our separate pillows. The door of communication between us is
shut. She has a night-light in her room--I prefer darkness. I close my
eyes and prepare for slumber. As a rule I fall asleep. My sleep is of
short duration. I awake with beads of perspiration standing on my
forehead, with my heart thumping heavily and with every nerve wide
awake, and waiting for the horror which will come. Sometimes I wait half
an hour--sometimes longer. Then I know by a faint, ticking sound in the
darkness that the Thing, for I can clothe it with no name, is about to
visit me. In a certain spot of the room, always in the same spot, a
bright light suddenly flashes; out of its midst there gleams a
preternaturally large eye, which looks fixedly at me with a diabolical
expression. As time goes, it does not remain long; but as agony counts,
it seems to take years of my life away with it. It fades as suddenly
into grey mist and nothingness as it comes, and, wet with perspiration,
and struggling to keep back screams of mad terror, I bury my head in the
bed-clothes."

"But have you never tried to investigate this thing?" I said.

"I did at first. The first night I saw it, I rushed out of bed and made
for the spot. It disappeared at once. I struck a light--there was
nothing whatever in the room."

"Why do you sleep in that room?"

"I must not go away from Lady Studley. My terror is that she should know
anything of this--my greater terror is that the apparition, failing me,
may visit her. I daresay you think I'm a fool, Halifax; but the fact is,
this thing is killing me, brave man as I consider myself."

"Do you see it every night?" I asked.

[Illustration: "IT IS THE MOST GHASTLY, THE MOST HORRIBLE FORM OF
TORTURE.]

"Not quite every night, but sometimes on the same night it comes twice.
Sometimes it will not come at all for two nights, or even three. It is
the most ghastly, the most horrible form of torture that could hurry a
sane man into his grave or into a madhouse."

"I have not the least shadow of doubt," I said,