“I am no ghost, Conrad,” she answered gently, trying if the sound of the old name would drive that wild madness out of his eyes. “Why are you afraid? What are you looking at? There is nothing there.”
For his eyes were still glaring wildly into the darkness beyond, and as Monica spoke he lifted his arm, and pointed to something out at sea.
“Don’t look at me!” he whispered hoarsely, yet not as if he addressed Monica. “Don’t speak to me! If you speak, I shall go mad! I shall go mad, I say! Why do you haunt me so? Why do you look always like that? I had a right—all is fair in love and war—and hate! Why did you give me the chance? I had a vow—a vow in heaven—or hell! Ah! ha! Revenge is sweet, after all!” and he burst into a wild, discordant laugh, dreadful to hear.
Monica shuddered, a sense of horror creeping over her. She did not catch the whole of his words, lost as that hoarse whisper was sometimes in the sullen plash of the advancing waves. The words were not addressed to her, but to some imaginary object visible only to the eye of madness. She attached no meaning to what she heard. She had no clue by which to unravel the workings of his disordered mind. Yet it was terrible to see his terror-stricken face, and listen to the exclamations addressed to a phantom foe. She tried to recall him to himself.
“Conrad, there is no one here but ourselves. You have been dreaming.”
Conrad turned his wild eyes towards her, but continued to point wildly over the sea.
“Can you not see him? There—out there! His head—his eyes—ah, those eyes!—as he looked _then_—then! Ah, don’t look so at me, I say! You will kill me!”
He buried his face in his hands and shuddered from head to foot. Monica, despite the shiver of horror that crept over her, felt more strongly than anything else a deep pity for one whose mind was so visibly shattered. Much of the past could be condoned to one whose mental faculties were so terribly unstrung. She came one step nearer, and laid her hand upon his arm.
“You should not be out here alone,” she said. “You had better go home. It is growing dark already. If you will come with me to the lodge, I will see that you have a lantern; or, if you like, I will send a servant with a lantern with you.” She felt, indeed, that he was hardly in a condition to be out alone. She wished Tom Pendrill could see him now. But at the touch of her hand Conrad sprang back as if she had struck him. His eyes were full of shrinking horror.