No, I knew little of him; but occasionally, sitting by the fire here
when a storm was heavy outside, for the coming of storms was always the
prelude of these moods in him, he would begin to mutter to himself, and
to talk to his dog of days long gone; of men and women he had once hated
or loved, or who loved or hated him--God knows which--and of deeds he
had once done, but which were now deeply buried under the years.

Perhaps he did not know that he was talking. Perhaps his soul, busy with
the past, forgot the motion of the lips and ceased to keep its watch
over the movements of that member which, unless ceaselessly guarded,
betrays us all so often. What did he mutter about? Well, the man is dead
and gone, and what little there is to tell cannot pain him now. Death
makes us indifferent to disclosure, and little do we care what the world
says about us when we lie sleeping in the grave, I ween. Yes, the man is
dead and gone this many a year; God rest his soul, and I heartily hope
he has found riches and rest and his dog ere now, as I feel certain he
has, and what little I know can do no harm, if told, to any.

Well, as I was saying, when storms were brewing in the air and the sea,
the uneasiness of the elements themselves seemed to take possession of
his soul and agitate it,--for his very body would rock to and fro and
sway in the chair when the fit was on him, and he would talk to his dog,
and to men and women, too, whom no one could see save himself, and if
what he said might be taken as the words of a sane man, he certainly had
been rich and powerful one day--and loved and hated, too, for that
matter. For from his speech one could but learn that all that makes life
worth the living was once his, and that he had lost it all--but
whatever may have been his other losses, one there must have been in
truth, for as to it his words were always the same: "_Gone, gone_," he
would say, "_gone_--and the winds I hear coming blow over her grave--but