Algernon Blackwood

“ Stahl said simply, yet with a certain confusion. "I--felt I owed you this explanation--er--this confession."
"You wished to warn me?"
"I wished to say 'Be careful' rather. I say it now--Be careful! I give you this invitation to share my cabin for the remainder of the voyage, and I urge you to accept it." The offer was from the heart, while the scientific interest in the man obviously half hoped for a refusal.
"You think harm might come to me?"
"Not physically. The man is gentle and safe in every way." ”

“ For years, evidently, he had wandered over the world, companionless among men, seeking his own, finding no place where to lay his head. People, it seemed, both men and women, kept him at arm's-length, feeling afraid ”

“ Stahl replied with a solemn anxiety in eyes and voice. "I mean that you have in yourself that 'quality' which makes the proximity of this 'being' dangerous: in a word that he may take you--er--with him."
"Conversion?"
"Appropriation."
They moved further up the deck together for some minutes in silence, but the Irishman's feelings, irritated by the man's prolonged evasion, reached a degree of impatience that was almost anger. "Let us be more definite," he exclaimed at length a trifle hotly. "You mean that I might go insane?" ”