But there her dignity stopped; for seeing that she had got a lever in her hands she began at once, womanlike, to use it. Without any hesitation or delay she asked me straightly to tell her what I had seen the night before. The directness of her questioning was my best help; my heart hardened and my lips closed. She saw my answer before I had spoken it, and turned away with an eloquent, rugged gesture of despair. She felt that her last hope was gone; that her last bolt had been sped in vain.
With her going, the link with last night seemed to break, and as she passed up the road the whole of that strange experience became dimmer and dimmer.
I walked home by Cruden sands in a sort of dream. The chill and strain of the night before seemed to affect me more and more with each hour. Feeling fatigued and drowsy I lay down on my bed and sank into a heavy, lethargic sleep.
The last thing I remember is the sounding of the dinner-gong, and a dim resolution not to answer its call. . . .
*****
It was weeks after, when the fever had passed away, that I left my bed in the Kilmarnock Arms.
