"You don't mean to go to bed, John! What for, dear? Man, a sleep would calm your mind for ye." "Na-a-a!" he smiled, and shook his head like a cunning madman who had detected her trying to get round him. "Na-a-a! No sleep for me--no sleep for me! I'm feared I would see the red een," he whispered, "the red een, coming at me out o' the darkness, the darkness"--he nodded, staring at her and breathing the word--"the darkness, the darkness! The darkness is the warst, mother," he added, in his natural voice, leaning forward as if he explained some simple, curious thing of every day. "The darkness is the warst, you know. I've seen them in the broad licht; but in the lobby," he whispered hoarsely--"in the lobby when it was dark--in the lobby they were terrible. Just twa een, and they aye keep thegither, though they're aye moving. That's why I canna pin them. And it's because I ken they're aye watching me, watching me, watching me that I get so feared. They're red," he nodded and whispered--"they're red--they're red." His mouth gaped in horror, and he stared as if he saw them now. He had boasted long ago of being able to see things inside his head; in his drunken hysteria he was to see them always. The vision he beheld against the darkness of his mind projected itself and glared at him. He was pursued by a spectre in his own brain, and for that reason there was no escape. Wherever he went it followed him. "O man John," wailed his mother, "what are ye feared for your faither's een for? He wouldna persecute his boy." "Would he no?" he said slowly. "You ken yoursell that he never liked me! And naebody could stand his glower. Oh, he was a terrible man, _my_ faither! You could feel the passion in him when he stood still. He could throw himsell at ye without moving. And he's throwing himsell at _me_ frae beyond the grave." Mrs. Gourlay beat her desperate hands. Her feeble remonstrance was a snowflake on a hill to the dull intensity of this conviction. So colossal was it that it gripped herself, and she glanced dreadfully across her shoulder. But in spite of her fears she must plead with him to save. "Johnnie dear," she wept passionately, "there's no een! It's just the drink gars you think sae." "No," he said dully; "the drink's my refuge. It's a kind thing, drink--it helps a body." "But, John, nobody believes in these things nowadays. It's just fancy in you. I wonder at a college-bred man like you giving heed to a wheen nonsense!" "Ye ken yoursell it was a byword in the place that he would haunt the House with the Green Shutters." "God help me!" cried Mrs. Gourlay; "what am I to do?" She piled up a great fire in the parlour, and the three poor creatures gathered round it for the night. (They were afraid to sit in the kitchen of an evening, for even the silent furniture seemed to talk of the murder it had witnessed.) John was on a carpet stool by his mother's feet, his head resting on her knee.