If I had beheld it myself at that moment, it would have been, I think, a less horrible sight to witness than to see him, as I saw him now, muttering inarticulately at vacancy.

My own nerves were more shaken than I could have thought possible by what had passed.

A vague dread of being near him in his present mood came over me, and I moved back a step or two.
He noticed the action instantly.
"Don't go! pray--pray don't go! Have I alarmed you?
Don't you believe me?
Do the lights make your eyes ache?
I only asked you to sit in the glare of the candles because I could not bear to see the light that always shines from the phantom there at dusk shining over you as you sat in the shadow.

Don't go--don't leave me yet!" There was an utter forlornness, an unspeakable misery in his face as he spoke these words, which gave me back my self-possession by the simple process of first moving me to pity.

I resumed my chair, and said that I would stay with him as long as he wished.
"Thank you a thousand times.