"I held it as a theory; I didn't know it as a fact."
Chip felt obliged to struggle onward. "And do I understand you to be telling me now that the ghosts have come back?"
"Perhaps you could as easily tell me."
It was a minute or more before Chip was able to say, in a voice he tried to keep firm: "If they have come back, you're not more haunted by them than—than any one else."
"So I understand."
The brief responses had the effect of dragging him forward. "And would it be fair to ask why you say that?—that you understand?"
"Oh, quite fair. It's partly because you are here."
"Then you think I ought to go away?"
"I think—since you ask me—that you oughtn't to have come."
"I came—to rest."