"What is the matter?" I asked.
"Oh, but, doctor, if—if after all what I saw last night were not a dream—if whilst during your absence from home, my son really has died, and appeared to me last night to let me know. What proof have you that the vision of my son last night was a dream?" he asked.
"What proof?" I exclaimed. "This proof," I cried, throwing off my disguise and speaking in my own natural voice again. "Behold me, father, risen from the dead!"
My father's surprise, consternation and joy was beyond all description.
"What!" he cried, "and are you really Jack risen from the grave? Come, let me touch you to be sure you are no ghost.
"Ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha!" he laughed, hysterically. "What! Jack, my boy, I see it all. Ha! ha! ha! ha!" and he wept upon my shoulder till I thought he'd go off in a fit.
"Hush! father," I cried, "and calm yourself. My resurrection must be a secret between us two, for motives of policy. Do you understand?"
"Why a secret?" he asked.
"Never mind now; that is part of my plan. If you tell a single soul you'll spoil all, and I am a ruined man," I said.
"I understand nothing of all this, Jack," said my father, "but you may count upon my secrecy; but I say, Jack, how long must I keep the secret, for I am burning to tell everyone in the village?"