"Is this one of my dreams?" he asked, faintly. "Are you a Vision of the night?"
"I am only a friendless woman," I said, "who has lost all that she loved and prized, and who is trying to win it back again."
He began to move his chair nearer to me once more. I lifted my hand. He stopped the chair directly. There was a moment of silence. We sat watching one another. I saw his hands tremble as he laid them on the coverlet; I saw his face grow paler and paler, and his under lip drop. What dead and buried remembrances had I brought to life in him, in all their olden horror?
He was the first to speak again.
"So this is your interest," he said, "in clearing up the mystery of Mrs. Eustace Macallan's death?"
"Yes."
"And you believe that I can help you?"
"I do."
He slowly lifted one of his hands, and pointed at me with his long forefinger.
"You suspect somebody," he said.
The tone in which he spoke was low and threatening; it warned me to be careful. At the same time, if I now shut him out of my confidence, I should lose the reward that might yet be to come, for all that I had suffered and risked at that perilous interview.
"You suspect somebody," he repeated.
"Perhaps!" was all that I said in return.
"Is the person within your reach?"
"Not yet."
"Do you know where the person is?"
"No."
He laid his head languidly on the back of his chair, with a trembling long-drawn sigh. Was he disappointed? Or was he relieved? Or was he simply exhausted in mind and body alike? Who could fathom him? Who could say?
"Will you give me five minutes?" he asked, feebly and wearily, without raising his head. "You know already how any reference to events at Gleninch excites and shakes me. I shall be fit for it again, if you will kindly give me a few minutes to myself. There are books in the next room. Please excuse me."
I at once retired to the circular antechamber. He followed me in his chair, and closed the door between us.