I think his first motion was to thrust me away; but I caught him by the hand, and with many protestations broke into my tale, giving him no time to forbid me.  And presently he drew me inside, and shutting the door, stood upright by the table, facing me with his fingers on the rim as if they rested there for support.

“Paschal,” said he, when at length I drew back, “this must not come to my lady’s ears.  She has been ailing of late.”

“Ay, sir, and long since:  of a disease past your curing.”

“God help us!  I hope not,” said he; then broke out violently:  “She is innocent, Paschal; innocent as a child!”

“Innocent!” cried I, in a voice which showed how little I believed.

“Paschal,” he went on, “you are my servant, but my friend also, I hope.  Nay, nay, I know.  I swear to you, then, these things do but happen in her sleep.  In her waking senses she is mine, as one day she shall be mine wholly.  But at night, when her will is dissolved in sleep, the evil spirit wakes and goes questing after its master.”

“Mahound?” I stammered, quaking.

“Be it Satan himself,” said he, very low and resolute, “I will win her from him, though my own soul be the ransom.”

“Dear my Master,” I began, and would have implored him on my knees; but he pointed to the door.  “I will win her,” he repeated.  “What you have seen to-night happens more rarely now.  Moreover, the summer is beginning—­”

He paused:  yet I had gathered his meaning.  “There will be less peril for the ships for a while,” said I.

Said he:  “To them she intends no harm.  It is for her master the light waves.  Paschal, I am an unhappy man!” He flung a hand to his forehead, but recovering himself peered at me under the shadow of it.  “If you could watch—­often—­as you have done to-night—­you might protect others from seeing—­”

The wisdom of this at least I saw, and gave him my promise readily.  Upon this understanding (for no more could be had) I withdrew me.

The next day, therefore, I moved my bed to a turret-chamber on the angle of the south-eastern wall whence I could keep my lady’s window in view.  I was never a man to need much sleep:  but if, through the year which followed, the apparition escaped once or twice without my cognisance, I dare take oath this was the extent of it.  It appeared more rarely, as my Master had promised:  and in the end (I think) scarce above once a month.  In form it never varied from the cresseted globe of flame I had first seen, and always it took the path across the fields towards Cuddan Point.  No sound went with it, or announced its going or return:  and while it was absent, my lady’s chamber would be utterly dark and silent.  My custom was not to follow it (which I had proved to be useless), but to let myself out and patrol the walls, satisfying myself that no watchers lurked about the castle.  I understood now that Pengersick was reported throughout the neighbourhood to be haunted:  and such a report is not the worst protection.  These vague tales kept aloof the country people who, but for them, had almost certainly happened on the secret.  And night after night while I watched, my Master wrestled with the Evil One in his room.