"Indeed, yes."
"My friend, tell me, tell me all about her. Is she happy?—no, I know she cannot be that—but—"
He lifted himself up in the bed, and there was something priest-like in his attitude as he folded his thin hands upon his breast and spoke.
"Two thousand feet above London there is a Palace of all delights. Immeasurable wealth, the genius of great artists have been combined to make a City of Enchantment. And in every garden with its plashing fountains, in its halls of pictures and delights, upon its aerial towers, down its gilded galleries, lurking at the banquet, mingling with the music, great shapes of terror squeak and gibber like the ghosts Shakespeare speaks of in ancient Rome."
"Morse?"
"There is a noble intellect overdone and dissolved in terror. In all other respects sane as you or I, my savior and benefactor, Gideon Morse is a maniac whose one sole idea is to preserve himself and his daughter from some horror, some vengeance which surely cannot threaten him."
Twice, thrice I strode the attic.
Then at last I stopped.
"Will you help me now, Pu-Yi, will you take a letter from me, will you help me to meet Her, and soon?"
He bowed his head for answer, and then, as he looked up again his face was suffused with a sort of bright eagerness that touched me to the heart.