I've seen--I've seen enough," he
said abruptly, and stopped.
"What have you seen?" she asked eagerly. "Was it good or bad?"
"Both," he answered quickly. "I was stalked once--stalked I was by night
and often in the open day, by some sickly, loathsome thing, that even
made me fight it with my hands--a thing I couldn't see. I used to fire
buckshot at it, enough to kill an army, till I near went mad. I was
really and truly getting loony. Then I took to prayin' to the best woman
I ever knowed. I never had a mother, but she looked after me--my sister,
Sara, it was. She brought me up, and then died and left me without
anything to hang on to. I didn't know all I'd lost till she was gone.
But I guess she knew what I thought of her; for she come back--after I'd
prayed till I couldn't see. She come back into my room one night when
the cursed 'haunt' was prowling round me, and as plain as I see you, I
saw her. 'Be at peace,' she said, and I spoke to her, and said, 'Sara-
why, Sara' and she smiled, and went away into nothing--like a bit o'
cloud in the sun."
He stopped, and was looking straight before him as though he saw a
vision.
"It went?" she asked breathlessly.
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