this action. "It's nothing but a--confounded juniper-bush," he said. This
I knew very well to be nonsense, for the juniper-bush was on the other
side. He went about after this round and round, poking his taper
everywhere, then returned to me on the inner side of the wall. He scoffed
no longer; his face was contracted and pale. "How long does this go on?"
he whispered to me, like a man who does not wish to interrupt some one
who is speaking. I had become too much perturbed myself to remark whether
the successions and changes of the voice were the same as last night. It
suddenly went out in the air almost as he was speaking, with a soft
reiterated sob dying away. If there had been anything to be seen, I
should have said that the person was at that moment crouching on the
ground close to the door.

We walked home very silent afterwards. It was only when we were in sight
of the house that I said, "What do you think of it?" "I can't tell what
to think of it," he said quickly. He took--though he was a very temperate
man--not the claret I was going to offer him, but some brandy from the
tray, and swallowed it almost undiluted. "Mind you, I don't believe a
word of it," he said, when he had lighted his candle; "but I can't tell
what to think," he turned round to add, when he was half-way upstairs.

All of this, however, did me no good with the solution of my problem. I
was to help this weeping, sobbing thing, which was already to me as
distinct a personality as anything I knew; or what should I say to
Roland? It was on my heart that my boy would die if I could not find some
way of helping this creature. You may be surprised that I should speak of
it in this way. I did not know if it was man or woman; but I no more
doubted that it was a soul in pain than I doubted my own being; and it
was my business to soothe this pain,--to deliver it, if that was
possible. Was ever such a task given to an anxious father trembling for