His voice had that quiet mastery in it which leads men to face death with a sort of happiness and pride. I would have followed him anywhere at that moment. At the same time his words conveyed a sense of dread seriousness. I caught the thrill of his confidence; but also, in this broad light of day, I felt the measure of alarm that lay behind.
“You still have no strong impressions?” he asked. “Nothing happened in the night, for instance? No vivid dreamings?”
He looked closely for my answer, I was aware.
“I slept almost an unbroken sleep. I was tremendously tired, you know, and, but for the oppressive heat——”
“Good! You still notice the heat, then,” he said to himself, rather than expecting an answer. “And the lightning?” he added, “that lightning out of a clear sky—that flashing—did you notice that?”
I answered truly that I thought I had seen a flash during a moment of wakefulness, and he then drew my attention to certain facts before moving on.
“You remember the sensation of warmth when you put the letter to your forehead in the train; the heat generally in the house last evening, and, as you now mention, in the night. You heard, too, the Colonel’s stories about the appearances of fire in this wood and in the house itself, and the way his brother and the gamekeeper came to their deaths twenty years ago.”
I nodded, wondering what in the world it all meant.
“And you get no clue from these facts?” he asked, a trifle surprised.
I searched every corner of my mind and imagination for some inkling of his meaning, but was obliged to admit that I understood nothing so far.