"At your window?" Uniacke said uneasily.
"Yes. Somebody—a man—I suppose it must have been the Skipper—came out from the shadow of this house soon after I went to my bedroom, and stole to that grave by the churchyard wall."
"Really," said Uniacke. "Did he stay there?"
"For some time, bending down. It seemed to me as if he were at some work, some task—or perhaps he was only praying in his mad way, poor fellow!"
"Praying—yes, yes, very likely. A little more coffee?"
"No, thank you. The odd thing was that after a while he ceased and returned to this house. One might have thought it was his home."
"You could not see if it was the Skipper?"
"No, the figure was too vague in the faint stormy light. But it must have been he. Who else would be out at such a time in such a night?"
"He never heeds the weather," said Uniacke.
His pale face had suddenly flushed scarlet, and he felt a pricking as of needles in his body. It seemed to him that he was transparent like a thing of glass, and that his guest must be able to see not merely the trouble of his soul, but the fact that was its cause. And the painter did now begin to observe his host's unusual agitation.