“How long I sat there I don’t know, but presently I became conscious that somebody was sitting beside me. I struck a match to relight my pipe, which had gone out, and the light of the vesta fell full on the face of the man who was my companion.
“I could not speak—for a second I could not move. It was no human being that sat beside me. The face I saw was the white face of death—the face of the man who had poisoned himself and died in a London hospital—the face of Charley Ransom!
“I rose with an effort, and walked—almost ran—away. I am not ashamed to confess that in that moment of horror I was an absolute, abject coward. I walked on at full speed until I got to the town and saw the lights of the shops, and mixed with the crowd, and then only I began to recover myself.
“I said to myself that I had been deceived by my imagination—that there was nobody by me on that seat. I had been thinking of Ransom, and had imagined that I saw him. Such things, I knew, had often occurred to imaginative people.
“By the time I reached home I was convinced that I had been the victim of an hallucination.
“I determined to conquer my folly, and the next evening I went to the same place and sat down. There was no one there. The road was lonely and deserted. I sat on till it was dark, and no one came. I rose to go. I walked a little distance away, and then I turned round.
“There was a man on the seat now. I walked back again—trembling, but determined to know the truth. When I came within a few yards I could see the man’s face.
“It was that white, dead face again—it was the face of Charley Ransom!
“With a supreme effort I went right up to the ghost. Its head was bent a little, its eyes were on the ground.
“‘Ransom!’ I said.