"Feel it!" he commanded again. I placed my fingers upon the band. It was cold—like frozen marble.
He drew his shirt around him.
"Two things you have seen," he said. "It—and its mark. Seeing, you must believe my story. Goodwin, I tell you again that my wife is dead—or worse—I do not know; the prey of—what you saw; so, too, is Stanton; so Thora. How—"
Tears rolled down the seared face.
"Why did God let it conquer us? Why did He let it take my Edith?" he cried in utter bitterness. "Are there things stronger than God, do you think, Walter?"
I hesitated.
"Are there? Are there?" His wild eyes searched me.
"I do not know just how you define God," I managed at last through my astonishment to make answer. "If you mean the will to know, working through science—"
He waved me aside impatiently.
"Science," he said. "What is our science against—that? Or against the science of whatever devils that made it—or made the way for it to enter this world of ours?"