The question, which was asked with a sudden and striking change of tone, was induced by the singularity of Mr. Ballingall's demeanour. He had started when Madge took up her position at the door, eyeing her following evolutions speechlessly, breathlessly, as if spellbound. Her slightest movement seemed to possess for him some curious fascination. As she proceeded, his agitation increased; every nerve seemed strained so that he might not lose the smallest detail of all that happened, until when, with dramatic gestures, she imitated the action of striking the panel, raising it, and taking out something which was contained within, he broke into cry after cry. "My God!--my God!--my God!" he repeated, over and over again. Covering his face with his hands, as if he strove to guard his eyes against some terrible vision, he crouched in a sort of heap on the floor. CHAPTER XV THE COMPANION OF HIS SOLITUDE When he looked up, it was timidly, doubtfully, as if fearful of what he might see. He glanced about him anxiously from side to side, as if in search of something or some one. "Tom!--Tom!" he said, speaking it was difficult to say to whom. He paused, as if for an answer. When none came, he drew himself upright gradually, inch by inch. They noticed how his lips were twitching, and how the whole of his body trembled. He passed his hand over his eyes, as a man might who is waking from a dream. Then he stretched it out in front of him, palm upwards, with a something of supplication in the action which lent pathos to the words he uttered--words which in themselves were more than sufficiently bizarre. "Do any of you believe in ghosts?--in disembodied spirits assuming a corporeal shape?--in the dead returning from their graves? Or is a man who thinks he sees a ghost, who knows he sees a ghost, who knows that a ghost is a continual attendant of his waking and of his sleeping hours alike--must such a man be in labour with some horrible delusion of his senses? Is his brain of necessity unhinged? Must he of a certainty be mad?" Not only was such an interrogation in itself remarkable, but more especially was it so as coming from such a figure as Ballingall presented. His rags and dirt were in strange contrast with his language. His words, chosen as it seemed with a nice precision, came from his lips with all the signs of practiced ease. His manner, even his voice, assumed a touch of refinement which before it lacked. In him was displayed the spectacle of a man of talent and of parts encased in all the outward semblance of a creature of the kennel. Madge, to whom the inquiry seemed to be more particularly addressed, replied to it with another. "Why do you ask us such a question?"