He started again when I said this, and going across the room, locked the
door and put the key in his pocket.

"Perhaps you will laugh at me," he said, "but it is no laughing matter,
I assure you. The most terrible, the most awful affliction has come to
me. In short, I am visited nightly by an appalling apparition. You
don't believe in ghosts, I judge that by your face. Few scientific
men do."

"Frankly, I do not," I replied. "So-called ghosts can generally be
accounted for. At the most they are only the figments of an over-excited
or diseased brain."

"Be that as it may," said Sir Henry, "the diseased brain can give such
torture to its victim that death is preferable. All my life I have been
what I consider a healthy minded man. I have plenty of money, and have
never been troubled with the cares which torture men of commerce, or of
small means. When I married, three years ago, I considered myself the
most lucky and the happiest of mortals."

"Forgive a personal question," I interrupted. "Has your marriage
disappointed you?"

"No, no; far from it," he replied with fervour. "I love my dear wife
better and more deeply even than the day when I took her as a bride to
my arms. It is true that I am weighed down with sorrow about her, but
that is entirely owing to the state of her health."

"It is strange," I said, "that she should be weighed down with sorrow