of his words or actions did the old man take the slightest notice.

The description that had been given of old Cameron was fulfilled in the
visitor; but what startled Trenholme more than this likeness, which
might have been the result of mere chance, was the evidence that this
man was not a person of ordinary senses and wits. He seemed like one who
had passed through some crisis, which had deprived him of much, and
given him perhaps more. It appeared probable, from his gait and air,
that he was to some extent blind; but the eagerness of the eyes and the
expression of the aged face were enough to suggest at once, even to an
unimaginative mind, that he was looking for some vision of which he did
not doubt the reality and listening for sounds which he longed to hear.
He put out a large hand and felt the table as he made his clumsy way
round it. He looked at nothing in the room but the lamp on the table
where Trenholme had lately put it. Trenholme doubted, however, if he saw
it or anything else. When he got to the other side, having wandered
behind the reflector, he stopped, as if perhaps the point of light,
dimly seen, had guided him so far but now was lost.

Trenholme asked him why he had come, what his name was, and several such
questions. He raised his voice louder and louder, but he might as well
have talked to the inanimate things about him. This one other human
being who had entered his desolate scene took, it would seem, no
cognisance of him at all. Just as we know that animals in some cases
have senses for sights and sounds which make no impression on human eyes
and ears, and are impervious to what we see and hear, so it seemed to
Trenholme that the man before him had organs of sense dead to the world
about him, but alive to something which he alone could perceive. It
might have been a fantastic idea produced by the strange circumstances,
but it certainly was an idea which leaped into his mind and would not be