It seemed as though a fear which had hitherto stood vague and shadowy in the background, began now to advance towards me, gathering more distinctness as it approached.
There was to me something morbidly terrible about the apparition of this man at such a momentous crisis in my brother's life, and I at once recognised that unknown form as being the shadow which was gradually stealing between John and myself.

Though I feigned incredulity as best I might, and employed those arguments or platitudes which will always be used on such occasions, urging that such a phantom could only exist in a mind disordered by physical weakness, my brother was not deceived by my words, and perceived in a moment that I did not even believe in them myself.
"Dearest Sophy," he said, with a much calmer air, "let us put aside all dissimulation.

I _know_ that what I have to-night seen, and that what I saw last summer at Oxford, are _not_ phantoms of my brain; and I believe that you too in your inmost soul are convinced of this truth.

Do not, therefore, endeavour to persuade me to the contrary.

If I am not to believe the evidence of my senses, it were better at once to admit my madness--and I know that I am not mad.