“Where, father? Point to me the place where it stands.”
“It stands now at my elbow, side by side with you.”
Gaston started involuntarily, the baronet’s tone bespoke such absolute conviction. He moved a step, and placed himself immediately at his father’s elbow.
“Do you see it now, father?” he asked.
“No, for you have taken its place. Yes! I see it again. It is on this side now, exactly opposite to you.”
There was in all this so little of the tone and manner of the mere spectre-ridden visionary, that Gaston could not but be impressed, and his alarm for his father’s state increased proportionately.
He began to question him in the direct matter-of-fact style of a doctor with his patient, inquiring into the particular nature of the vision, how often and in what circumstances it presented itself, whether his father were able to connect it with any event of his life, or whether it seemed to be causeless, a mere fabric of the imagination.
His object in this was to bring his father to exert his reason upon the matter, that so, if possible, he might end by convincing himself that he was haunted merely by some spectre of the brain. He was, however, only partially successful, and for this reason, that his father, while denying—and with perfect honesty of convincement—the reality of his vision, remained nevertheless persuaded that his bodily eye beheld it.
“I cannot well remember,” went on Sir Selwyn, “how many years it is since this spectre first began to haunt me. In the beginning I thought little of it; my health was more robust then than it has been in late years, and leading a more active life at that time than I am able to do at present, I had greater strength, both of mind and body, to assist me in banishing it from my thoughts and presence. Indeed, I could then at any time rid myself of the vision by a mere exertion of will; but I can do so no longer. It torments me now as it pleases. I am powerless against it.”
“Does the form resemble that of anyone whom you have ever known?” asked Gaston.