"It's quick of you to guess that," said Fillery, with quick appreciation. "You noticed a change in me, well—but the other——? He divined my 'foreign' blood, you think?"
"It is enough that you responded and felt kinship. Put it that way. 'N. H.' seems to me"—he took a deeper breath and gave a sort of gasp—"in some ways—a unique—being—as I said before."
"Tell me, if you can," said Fillery, lighting his own pipe and settling back into his chair, "tell me a little about your first meeting with him in the Jura Mountains, what happened and so forth. I remember, of course, your Notes. After your telegram, I read 'em carefully." He glanced round at his companion. "They were very honest, Paul, I thought. Eh?" He was unable to refuse himself the pleasure of the little dig. "Honest you always are," he added. "We couldn't work together otherwise, could we?"
Devonham, deep in his own thoughts, did not accept the challenge. He turned in his chair, puffing at his pipe.
"I can give you briefly what happened and how things went," he said. "The place, then, first: an ordinary peasant châlet in a remote Jura valley, difficult of access, situated among what they call the upper pastures. I reached it by diligence and mule late in the afternoon. A peasant in a lower valley directed me, adding that 'le monsieur anglais' was dead and buried two days before——"
"Mason, that is?"
The other nodded. "And adding that 'le fou'——"
"LeVallon, of course?"
"——would eat me alive at sight. He spoke with respect, however, even awe. He hoped I had come to take him away. The countryside was afraid of him.
"The valley struck me as intolerably lonely, but of unusual beauty. Big forests, great rocks, and tumbling streams among cliffs and pastures made it exceptional. The châlet was simple, clean and comfortable. It was really an ideal spot for a thinker or a student. The first thing I noticed was a fire burning on a pile of rock in front of the building. The sun was setting, and its last rays lit the entire little glen—a mere gully between precipices and forest slopes—but especially lit up the pile of rocks where the fire burned, so that I saw the smoke, blue, red and yellow, and the figure kneeling before it. This figure was a man, half naked, and of magnificent proportions. When I shouted——"