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 reasoned away.

He did not feel repulsion for the poor wanderer, or fear of him; he felt rather a growing attraction--in part curiosity, in part pity, in part desire for whatever it might be that had brought the look of joyous expectancy into the aged face.