"There is no need of you being the most unhappy woman in the world; there is no need of your being unhappy at all."
She looked up at him in white, voiceless appeal, her lips and hands trembling.
"Don't excite yourself—don't be agitated. I have no news for you but I think I may bid you hope with safety. I don't think it was a ghost you saw that night."
She gave a little cry, and then sat white and still, waiting.
"I don't think it was a ghost," he repeated, lowering his voice. "I don't think he is dead."
She did not speak; she only sat looking up at him with that white, still face.
"There is no need of your wearing a widow's weeds, Agnes," he said, touching her black dress; "I believe your husband to be alive."
She never spoke. If her life had depended on it, she could not have uttered a word—could not have removed her eyes from his face.
"I have no positive proof of what I say, but a conviction that is equal to any proof in my own mind. I believe your husband to be alive—I believe him to be an inmate of this very house."
He stopped in alarm. She had fallen back in her chair, the bluish pallor of death overspreading her face.