that he was actually afraid to look round. But in another moment he felt
that at all hazards he must see what or who this presence was. Without
stopping he partly turned and partly looked over his shoulder. The
silver light of early morning was filling the room, making the various
objects appear of less bright colour than usual, and giving to
everything a pearl-grey neutral tint. In this cold but clear light he
saw seated in the wicker chair the figure of a man.

In the first violent shock of so terrifying a discovery, he could not
appreciate such details as those of features, dress, or appearance. He
was merely conscious that with him, in a locked room of which he knew
himself to be the only human inmate, there sat something which bore a
human form. He looked at it for a moment with a hope, which he felt
to be vain, that it might vanish and prove a phantom of his excited
imagination, but still it sat there. Then my brother put down his
violin, and he used to assure me that a horror overwhelmed him of an
intensity which he had previously believed impossible. Whether the image
which he saw was subjective or objective, I cannot pretend to say: you
will be in a position to judge for yourself when you have finished this
narrative. Our limited experience would lead us to believe that it was a
phantom conjured up by some unusual condition of his own brain; but we
are fain to confess that there certainly do exist in nature phenomena
such as baffle human reason; and it is possible that, for some hidden
purposes of Providence, permission may occasionally be granted to those
who have passed from this life to assume again for a time the form of
their earthly tabernacle. We must, I say, be content to suspend our
judgment on such matters; but in this instance the subsequent course of
events is very difficult to explain, except on the supposition that
there was then presented to my brother's view the actual bodily form of
one long deceased. The dread which took possession of him was due, he