“Yes,” replied Sir Selwyn, after a moment’s pause.
“And the person whose spirit you believe this to be is now dead, father?”
“Dead many years,” answered Sir Selwyn.
“And what is there in the vision that troubles you so greatly, father?” asked his son.
“Its presence is tormenting,” replied Sir Selwyn, “because I feel that there is evil in it; it is malignant, and seems continually to threaten me.”
“Is it here still, father?”
“No, since we have been speaking it has vanished. I shall see it no more to-night; but it will return to-morrow, and in the end it will kill me.”
“No, father, no,” said Gaston affectionately, but gravely. “Let me entreat you not to give way. You see how this vision, whatever it may be, vanishes when you begin to reason upon it. The mere fact of our having discussed it together will enable you to combat it more resolutely. Do this, and the same power will revive by which you dispelled the vision when first it troubled you.”
Indeed, the closing words of Sir Selwyn’s confession, notwithstanding the quiet assurance with which they were spoken, had practically convinced his son that the case was one of hallucination. They continued talking on the subject until, at the baronet’s usual hour of retiring, they separated for the night, when Gaston was so far satisfied that his arguments appeared at last to have given his father a somewhat increased measure of self-confidence.
At breakfast the next day, Sir Selwyn assured his son that he had slept well, and both in speech and look he was more cheerful than Gaston had seen him during a considerable period. It seemed, in short, as though the effect of their conversation the previous night had already begun to bear out the son’s prediction; nor, at the end of a week, did this good effect appear to have been in any degree dissipated. “I have not seen it once,” said Sir Selwyn, in answer to a question from Gaston. Another week passed, and a third, and the baronet declared that there had been no recurrence of the visions. He became very reticent upon the subject, and it was evident that he now shrank from any allusion to it. Gaston, on his side, was only too willing to avoid its mention.