told him. "Carry on with
what you're doing. There's room enough for both of us here."

"Yessuh; thank yo', suh." The old ex-sergeant resumed his soft humming,
keeping time with the brush in his hand.

"You know, Popsy, I think he knows I'm here," Dearest said. "Nothing
definite, of course; he just feels there's something here that he can't
see."

"I wonder. I've noticed something like that. Funny, he doesn't seem to
mind, either. Colored people are usually scary about ghosts and spirits
and the like.... I'm going to ask him." He raised his voice. "Sergeant,
do you seem to notice anything peculiar around here, lately?"

The repetitious little two-tone melody broke off short. The
soldier-servant lifted his face and looked into the Colonel's. His brow
wrinkled, as though he were trying to express a thought for which he had
no words.

"Yo' notice dat, too, suh?" he asked. "Why, yessuh, Cunnel; Ah don' know
'zackly how t' say hit, but dey is som'n, at dat. Hit seems like ...
like a kinda ... a kinda _blessedness_." He chuckled. "Dat's hit,
Cunnel; dey's a blessedness. Wondeh iffen Ah's gittin' r'ligion, now?"

* * * * *

"Well, all this is very interesting, I'm sure, Doctor," T. Barnwell
Powell was saying, polishing his glasses on a piece of tissue and
keeping one elbow on his briefcase at the same time. "But really, it's
not getting us anywhere, so to say. You know, we must have that
commitment signed by you. Now, is it or is it not your opinion that this
man is of unsound mind?"

"Now, have patience, Mr. Powell," the psychiatrist soothed him. "You
must admit that as long as this gentleman refuses to talk, I cannot be
said to have interviewed him."

"What if he won't talk?" Stephen Hampton burst out. "We've told you
about his behavior; how he sits for hours mumbling to this imaginary
person he thinks is with him, and how he always steps aside when he
opens a door, to let somebody who isn't there go through ahead of him,
and how.... Oh, hell, what's the use? If he were in his right mind, he'd
speak up and try to prove it, wouldn't he? What do you say, Myra?"

Myra was silent, and Colonel Hampton found himself watching her with
interest. Her mouth had twisted into a wry grimace, and she was
clutching the arms of her chair until her knuckles whitened. She seemed
to be in some intense pain. Colonel Hampton hoped she were; preferably
with something slightly fatal.

* *