Monica shuddered, a sense of horror creeping over her. She did not catch the whole of his words, lost as that hoarse whisper was sometimes in the sullen plash of the advancing waves. The words were not addressed to her, but to some imaginary object visible only to the eye of madness. She attached no meaning to what she heard. She had no clue by which to unravel the workings of his disordered mind. Yet it was terrible to see his terror-stricken face, and listen to the exclamations addressed to a phantom foe. She tried to recall him to himself. “Conrad, there is no one here but ourselves. You have been dreaming.” Conrad turned his wild eyes towards her, but continued to point wildly over the sea. “Can you not see him? There—out there! His head—his eyes—ah, those eyes!—as he looked _then_—then! Ah, don’t look so at me, I say! You will kill me!” He buried his face in his hands and shuddered from head to foot. Monica, despite the shiver of horror that crept over her, felt more strongly than anything else a deep pity for one whose mind was so visibly shattered. Much of the past could be condoned to one whose mental faculties were so terribly unstrung. She came one step nearer, and laid her hand upon his arm. “You should not be out here alone,” she said. “You had better go home. It is growing dark already. If you will come with me to the lodge, I will see that you have a lantern; or, if you like, I will send a servant with a lantern with you.” She felt, indeed, that he was hardly in a condition to be out alone. She wished Tom Pendrill could see him now. But at the touch of her hand Conrad sprang back as if she had struck him. His eyes were full of shrinking horror. “Go away!” he said fiercely, “your hand burns me—it burns me, I say! How can you look at me or touch me? What have I done that you come here day by day to torment me? Is it not enough that _he_ leaves me no peace night or day?—that he brings me down to this cursed place, whether I will or no, but you must haunt me too? Ah, it is too much—it is too much, I say!” She could not catch all these rapidly-uttered words, but she read the hopeless misery of his face. “I do not wish to distress you, Conrad. Will you go home quietly now? You are not well; you should not be out here alone. Have you anybody there to take care of you?” He laughed again, and flung his arms above his head with a wild gesture of despair. “You say this to me—you! you! It only wanted this. My God, this is too much!” He turned from her and sprang away in the darkness. She heard his steps as he dashed recklessly up the cliff path—so recklessly that she half expected to hear the sound of a slip and a fall—and then as he reached the summit and turned inland, they died away into silence.