It seemed to have settled itself. It came about so naturally and easily, so quickly. He probed no deeper. He didn’t care. And for the first time he omitted the little ritual, half prayer, half adoration, it had always been his custom to offer to his deities upon retiring to rest. He no longer recognised them.
How utterly broken his life was! How blank and terrible and lonely! He felt cold, and piled his overcoats upon the bed, as though his mental isolation involved a physical effect as well. Switching off the light by the door, he was in the act of crossing the floor in the darkness when a sound beneath the window caught his ear. Outside there were voices talking. The roar of falling water made them indistinct, yet he was sure they were voices, and that one of them he knew. He stopped still to listen. He heard his own name uttered—‘John Limasson.’ They ceased. He stood a moment shivering on the boards, then crawled into bed beneath the heavy clothing. But in the act of settling down, they began again. He raised himself again hurriedly to listen. What little wind there was passed in that moment down the valley, carrying off the roar of falling water; and into the moment’s space of silence dropped fragments of definite sentences:
‘They are close, you say—close down upon the world?’ It was the voice of the priest surely.
‘For days they have been passing,’ was the answer—a rough, deep tone that might have been a peasant’s, and a kind of fear in it, ‘for all my flocks are scattered.’
‘The signs are sure? You know them?’
‘Tumult,’ was the answer in much lower tones. ‘There has been tumult in the mountains....’
There was a break then as though the voices sank too low to be heard. Two broken fragments came next, end of a question—beginning of an answer.
‘... the opportunity of a lifetime?’
‘... if he goes of his own free will, success is sure. For acceptance is ...’
And the wind, returning, bore back the sound of the falling water, so that Limasson heard no more....