Haggart, agitated but restrained, says:
“You frighten me, sir. Why do you ask me what you know better than I do? You want to tempt me—you know everything.”
There is not a trace of a smile in the mournful voice—nothing but sadness.
“No, I know little. I know even less than you do, for I know more. Pardon my rather complicated phrase, Haggart, but the tongue responds with so much difficulty not only to our feeling, but also to our thought.”
“You are polite,” mutters Haggart agitated. “You are polite and always calm. You are always sad and you have a thin hand with rings upon it, and you speak like a very important personage. Who are you, sir?”
“I am he whom you called—the one who is always sad.”
“When I come, you are already here; when I go away, you remain. Why do you never want to go with me, sir?”
“There is one way for you, Haggart, and another for me.”
“I see you only at night. I know all the people around this settlement, and there is no one who looks like you. Sometimes I think that you are the owner of that old castle where I lived. If that is so I must tell you the castle was destroyed by the storm.”
“I don’t know of whom you speak.”