About the man's earnestness, as he responded, there could be no doubt. The muscles of his face twitched as with St. Vitus' Dance; beads of sweat stood upon his brow; the intensity of his desire to give adequate expression to his thoughts seemed to hamper his powers of utterance. "Because I want some one to help me--some one, God or man. Because, during the last year and more I have endured a continual agony to which I doubt if the pains of hell can be compared. Because things with me have come to such a pitch that it is only at times I know if I am dead or living, asleep or waking, mad or sane, myself or another." He pointed to Graham. "He has told you how it was with me aforetime; how I was haunted--driven by a ghost to gaol. When I was in gaol it was worse a thousandfold--I was haunted, always, day and night. The ghost of my old friend--the best friend man ever had--whom in so many ways I had so blackly and often wronged, was with me, continually, in my cell. Oh for some sign by which I could know that my sins have been forgiven me!--by which I could learn that by suffering I could atone for the evil I have done! Some sign, O Lord, some sign!" He threw his hands above his head in a paroxysm of passion. As has been said of more than one great tragic actor, in his voice there were tears. As, indeed, there were in the eyes of at least one of those who heard. His manner, when he proceeded, was a little calmer--which very fact seemed to italicise the strangeness of his tale.