"JOHN PENHALLOW."
"Isn't that delightful, Uncle Jim? But every night I think of it—this facing of death. I see battles and storming parties. Don't you see things before you fall asleep? I can see whatever I want to see—or don't want to."
"Never saw anything of the kind—I just go to sleep."
"I thought everybody could see things as I do."
"See John too, Leila? Wish I could."
"Yes," she said, "sometimes." In fact, she could see at will the man who was so near and so dear and a friend to-day—and in that very lonely time when the house was still and the mind going off guard, the something indefinitely more.
The Squire, who had been studying the map, was now standing before the fire looking up where hung over the mantel his sword and the heavy army pistols. He turned away as he said, "Life is pretty hard, Leila. I ought to be here—here making guns. I want to be where my class-mates are in the field. I can't see my way, Leila. When I see a duty clearly, I can do it. Now here I have to decide what is my duty. There is no devil like indecision. What would you do?"
"It is a question as to what you will do, not I—and—oh, dear Uncle Jim, it is, you know, what we call in that horrid algebra the X of the equation."
"I must see your Aunt Ann. Is she"—and he hesitated—"is she herself?"—he would not say, quite, sane.
"She is not at all times."