During the anguish of the first days of Julius’ illness, Mr. Field’s thoughts were concentrated wholly upon his suffering boy, but as the tension became relaxed and the child regained his vigour, the terrible time which he had spent in the wood came back with full force and vividness to his mind. "Could I have been mad for the moment?" he would ask himself again and again. "First the words--and then the face! It was too awful. People used to have visions in the old days--is it possible that they sometimes come to men still?" He had never believed in ghosts, but he felt curiously nervous now as the dusk gathered round, and to Burn’s astonishment, gave orders that the electric light was to be left on all night in the passages and hall. It had never been his custom to wander much alone even within the borders of his own property, but since that memorable evening he had taken exercise only upon the terrace in front of the house, and when obliged to go to Westmarket upon business, had motored in with the hood up and the blinds drawn. "I have got bad neuralgia," he explained by way of excuse, "and the glare hurts my eyes." "I wonder why he wants such an illumination at night then?" remarked the butler. "I can’t tell what’s come to him lately. It seems almost as if he were going crazy." Do what he could, Mr. Field was unable to banish the unpleasant adventure from his thoughts. Night and day his mind was filled with strange and terrifying questionings, which he sought to meet by commonplace answers and logical explanations, but all in vain. "It must just have been some fellow seeking shelter from the rain, as I was doing myself," he would argue. "There is no doubt there was an extraordinary likeness, but it cannot be anything more. Probably if I had seen the same face in broad daylight it would have had no effect upon me, but that night my nerves were completely unhinged by the storm. I wish I could get the dreadful death-look of those eyes out of my mind. There is only one other face that would be worse to see again, and I think I should go off my head altogether if that appeared to me in the same manner as this one did. It is bad enough to be obliged to meet it in my dreams." Once the thought crossed Mr. Field’s brain that the apparition was some prank of Ben’s, another practical joke, based upon some shrewd supposition, and perpetrated in order to extort more money out of the apparently bottomless coffers of his prey. Some judicious questioning, however, set his fears at rest in that quarter.