‘Haunted?’ He held himself erect, looking me straight in the face.  Then a shiver went all over him; the muscles of his mouth twitched; and, in an instant, he was livid.  He staggered against the table.  ‘Yes, God knows it’s true,—­I’m haunted.’

’So either you’re mad, and therefore unfit to marry; or else you’ve done something which places you outside the tolerably generous boundaries of civilised society, and are therefore still more unfit to marry.  You’re on the horns of a dilemma.’

‘I—­I’m the victim of a delusion.’

’What is the nature of the delusion?  Does it take the shape of a—­ beetle?’

‘Atherton!’

Without the slightest warning, he collapsed,—­was transformed; I can describe the change which took place in him in no other way.  He sank in a heap on the floor; he held up his hands above his head; and he gibbered,—­like some frenzied animal.  A more uncomfortable spectacle than he presented it would be difficult to find.  I have seen it matched in the padded rooms of lunatic asylums, but nowhere else.  The sight of him set every nerve of my body on edge.

’In Heaven’s name, what is the matter with you, man?  Are you stark, staring mad?  Here,—­drink this!’

Filling a tumbler with brandy, I forced it between his quivering fingers.  Then it was some moments before I could get him to understand what it was I wanted him to do.  When he did get the glass to his lips, he swallowed its contents as if they were so much water.  By degrees his senses returned to him.  He stood up.  He looked about him, with a smile which was positively ghastly.

‘It’s—­it’s a delusion.’

‘It’s a very queer kind of a delusion, if it is.’

I eyed him, curiously.  He was evidently making the most strenuous efforts to regain his self-control,—­all the while with that horrible smile about his lips.

‘Atherton, you—­you take me at an advantage.’  I was still.  ’Who—­ who’s your Oriental friend?’

’My Oriental friend?—­you mean yours.  I supposed, at first, that the individual in question was a man; but it appears that she’s a woman.’

‘A woman?—­Oh.—­How do you mean?’

’Well, the face is a man’s—­of an uncommonly disagreeable type, of which the powers forbid that there are many!—­and the voice is a man’s,—­also of a kind!—­but the body, as, last night, I chanced to discover, is a woman’s.’

‘That sounds very odd.’  He closed his eyes.  I could see that his cheeks were clammy.  ‘Do you—­do you believe in witchcraft?’

‘That depends.’

‘Have you heard of Obi?’

‘I have.’

’I have been told that an Obeah man can put a spell upon a person which compels a person to see whatever he—­the Obeah man—­may please.  Do you think that’s possible?’

’It is not a question to which I should be disposed to answer either yes or no.’

He looked at me out of his half-closed eyes.  It struck me that he was making conversation,—­saying anything for the sake of gaining time.