She is silent for a moment or two, while I bring her a glass of water, and throw a dressing-gown round her cold and shrinking form.
“Now tell me, my little one,” I say, coaxingly, sitting down at her feet, “what it was—what you thought you saw?”
“Thought I saw!” echoes she, with indignant emphasis, sitting upright, while her eyes sparkle feverishly. “I am as certain that I saw him standing there as I am that I see that candle burning—that I see this chair—that I see you.”
“Him! but who is him?”
She falls forward on my neck, and buries her face in my shoulder.
“That—dreadful—man!” she says, while her whole body is one tremor.
“What dreadful man?” cry I, impatiently.
She is silent.
“Who was he?”
“I do not know.”