Macbeth stood so wrapt in gloomy musing that Lady Macbeth was forced to recall him to a sense of his duties as host. Poor lady, she had a hard task that night. Not only had she to conceal her own unhappiness, but she had to support the flagging spirits of her husband, and try to screen his strange behaviour, while she scattered smiles and flattering words in all directions. Macbeth roused himself by fits and starts, but his gaiety was forced, and his wife dreaded that every moment he would betray himself. However, at Lady Macbeth’s rebuke, he tried to shake off his gloom, and, approaching the table, he made an effort to speak cheerfully to the guests. “May it please your highness sit,” said the Thane of Lennox. The seat which Macbeth had been about to occupy when he went to speak to the murderer had remained empty, but now, unnoticed by all the other guests, a figure glided in and took possession of it. If only Banquo were present, Macbeth went on to say, their honour would be complete, and he hoped it was his own fault, and no mischance, that had kept him away. The Thane of Ross replied that Banquo deserved blame for not keeping his promise, and again asked Macbeth to favour them with his company. “The table’s full,” said Macbeth. “Here is a place reserved, sir,” said Lennox. “Where?” “Here, my good lord,” said Lennox, pointing to the seat Macbeth had first chosen. “What is it that moves your Highness?” he added in alarm, for Macbeth stood gazing in horror at what seemed to the others nothing but an empty stool. Well might the guilty King tremble and grow pale, for in the place that seemed vacant to everyone else he saw sitting the blood-stained figure of the murdered Banquo. “Thou canst not say I did it; never shake thy gory locks at me!” he cried, recoiling in horror. “Gentlemen, rise; his Highness is not well,” said the Thane of Ross. But with eager words Lady Macbeth tried to calm the startled guests, assuring them that it was only a momentary fit of illness, such as Macbeth had been accustomed to from his youth. “Eat, and regard him not,” she implored them, and then, in a stern undertone, she tried to rouse her husband from his fit of dazed terror. But Macbeth was heedless of her entreaties. With starting eyes he watched the ghastly figure which his guilty brain alone could see, and it was only when the vision melted away that he recovered from the sort of stupor into which he had fallen. Then, for a brief moment, he spoke cheerfully, and, calling for wine, he drank to the health of all present. “And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss,” he added boldly. “Would he were here! To all, and him, we drink!”