He addressed himself again to the curate.
"Did you not give to the double the attributes of a man? Did you not make his wife come to bid him good night, bend down to kiss him, waft him a characteristic farewell?"
"It is true. I did," said Chichester, still speaking like a man in deep thought.
"That was the most terrible part of all," said Lady Sophia. In her voice there was an accent almost of horror. "It sickened me to the soul," she continued—"the idea of a woman bidding a tender good night to an apparition."
"I took it as a man," said Malling.
They had all three, strangely, left the rector out of this discussion, and he seemed willing that it should be so. He now sat back in his chair listening to all that was being said, somewhat as he had listened to the sermon of Chichester, in a sort of ghastly silence.
"How could a man's double be a man?" said Lady Sophia.
"We are in the region of assumption and of speculation," returned Malling, quietly, "a not uninteresting region either, I think. The other night for a whole hour, having assumed the double man, I speculated on his existence, spied upon by his other self. And you never did that?"
He looked at Chichester.
"When I was making my sermon I was engrossed by the thought of the watching man."