the dining-room, where lamps and fire burned brightly. Their glow
falling on Austyn's face showed me how pale it was, and worn as if from
watching.

Breakfast was set ready for him, but he refused to touch it.

"But tell me what you saw."

"I must have slept two or three hours when I awoke with the feeling that
there was someone besides myself in the room. I thought at first it was
the remains of a dream and would quickly fade away; but it did not, it
grew stronger. Then I raised myself in bed and looked round. The space
between the sash of the window and the curtains--my shutters were not
closed--allowed one narrow stream of moonlight to enter and lie across
the floor. Near this, standing on the brink of it, as it were, and
rising dark against it, was a shadowy figure. Nothing was clearly
outlined but the face; _that_ I saw only too distinctly. I rose and
remained up for at least an hour before it vanished. I heard the clock
outside strike the hour twice. I was not looking at it all this time--on
the contrary, my hands were clasped across my closed eyes; but when from
time to time I turned to see if it was gone, it was reminded me of a
wild beast waiting to spring, and I seemed to myself to be holding it at
bay all the time with a great strain of the will, and, of course"--he
hesitated for an instant, and then added--"in virtue of a higher power."

The reserve of all his school forbade him to say more, but I understood
as well as if he had told me that he had been on his knees, praying all
the time, and there rose before my mind a picture of the
scene--moonlight, kneeling saint, and watching demon, which the leaf of
some illustrated missal might have furnished.