I am accustomed to be obeyed' Old and feeble and shrunken as he was, there was a power in his tone of command which Mary was unable to resist.

She felt very sure that he was imbecile or mad.

She knew that madmen are apt to imagine themselves great personages, and to take upon themselves, with a wonderful power of impersonation, the dignity and authority of their imaginary rank; and she supposed that it must be thus with this strange old man.

She struggled against her sense of terror.

After all there could be no real danger, in the broad daylight, within the precincts of her own home, within call of the household.
She seated herself on the bench by the unknown, willing to humour him a little; and he turned himself about slowly, as if every bone in his body were stiff with age, and looked at her with a deliberate scrutiny..