There was the solution of the terror--sweat that stood out in beads upon his brow--he had deemed me a spectre; the spectre of a man he believed to have foully done to death on a spot across the Loire visible from the window at my back.
At last he sufficiently mastered himself to break the awful silence.
"What do you want ?" he whispered; then, his voice gaining power as he used it--"Speak," he commanded.

"Man or devil, speak!" I laughed for answer, harshly, mockingly; for never had I known a fiercer, crueller mood.

At the sound of that laugh, satanical though may have been its ring, he sprang up again, and unsheathing a dagger he took a step towards me.
"We shall see of what you are made," he cried.

"If you blast me in the act, I'll strike you!" I laughed again, and raising my arm I gave him the nozzle of a pistol to contemplate.
"Stand where you are, St.Auban, or, by the God above us, I'll send your ghost a-wandering," quoth I coolly.
My voice, which I take it had nothing ghostly in it, and still more the levelled pistol, which of all implements is the most unghostly, dispelled his dread.

The colour crept slowly back to his cheeks, and his mouth closed with a snap of determination.
"Is it, indeed, you, master meddler ?" he said.