on the smallest emergency I
should be summoned to her aid. This arrangement was made, and her room
opens into mine. I have sometimes heard her moving about at night--I
have often heard her cough, and I have often heard her sigh. But she has
never once sent for me, or given me to understand that she required my
aid. She does not think herself very ill, and nothing worries her more
than to have her malady spoken about. That is the part of the story
which relates to my wife."

"She is very ill," I said. "But I will speak of that presently. Now will
you favour me with an account of your own symptoms, Sir Henry?"

[Illustration: "HE LOCKED THE DOOR AND PUT THE KEY IN HIS POCKET."]

He started again when I said this, and going across the room, locked the
door and put the key in his pocket.

"Perhaps you will laugh at me," he said, "but it is no laughing matter,
I assure you. The most terrible, the most awful affliction has come to
me. In short, I am visited nightly by an appalling apparition. You
don't believe in ghosts, I judge that by your face. Few scientific
men do."

"Frankly, I do not," I replied. "So-called ghosts can generally be
accounted for. At the most they are only the figments of an over-excited
or diseased brain."

"Be that as it may," said Sir Henry, "the diseased brain can give such
torture to its victim that death is preferable. All my life I have been
what I consider a healthy minded man. I have plenty of money, and have
never been troubled with the cares which torture men of commerce, or of
small means. When I married, three years ago, I considered myself the
most lucky and the happiest of mortals."

"Forgive a personal question," I interrupted. "Has your marriage
disappointed you?"

"No, no; far from it," he replied with fervour. "I love my dear wife
better and more deeply even than the day when I took her as a bride to
my arms. It is true that I am weighed down with sorrow about her, but
that is entirely owing to the state of her health."

"It is strange," I said, "that she should be weighed down with sorrow
about you for the same cause. Have you told her of the thing which
terrifies you?"

"Never, never. I have never spoken of it to mortal. It is remarkable
that my wife should have told you that I looked like a man who has seen
a ghost. Alas! alas! But let me tell you the cause of my shattered
nerves, my agony, and failing health."

"Pray do, I shall listen attentively," I replied.

"Oh