He took it from me much as he would have taken a bowl of poison. "The
light! The light! You slow old fool! The light!" he said, jerking the
words out as if his soul was in distress, and the ancient, barely half-way
down the hall, quickened his poor pace up to his master. He, tearing the
lantern out of the feeble hands, and rattling it down on a table, ripped
open the letter and devoured its contents.

The light of the lantern revealed the face of a man still young, but at
least a half-score years my elder. He had a thin-lipped, sensitive mouth,
a great arched nose, and quick, eager eyes. His mind was running like a
mill-race, and his fine face twitched and wreathed and wrinkled under the
stress of the flow. Another thing plain enough was that the old man had
lied when he said his master was abed, for he was fully and carefully
dressed and his wig had not in it a single displaced or unravelled curl.
This was no half-awakened dreamer, but a man with the issues of his life
at stake.

He crushed the letter in his hand and paced up and down the hall,
muttering to himself. I turned and rubbed Sultan's nose to keep him quiet
and happy. The old servant took charge of the lantern again, and followed
his master up and down with his eyes.

"A year ago, yes! A year ago, yes!" I heard Sir James say. He quickened
his steps and the words came in jerks, mere nouns with verbs too big with
meaning for him to utter them. "A word! A dream! A dead faith! Yes,
father! The devil! Sweetheart!"

There is a great line in the Aeneid which I had tried in vain a hundred
times to translate. Three days agone I would have tilted at it once more
with all the untutored zeal of a verbalist. I should never need to try