“For a very good reason, the best of reasons,” he replied: “he hasn’t any. He only takes men. In which, I may add, he shows his wisdom, for female lunatics are the most disgusting creatures on earth. Pah! let us change the subject.”
I was only too glad. But I was not in the least fit for a scientific discussion with my host. I felt a dread gradually investing me—a dread lest I should find that the deserted spot the strange lady dragged me to last night actually existed in the grounds.
If I should come upon it just as it was, I should believe in my adventure as a fact. In that case, how about the missing chapter “On the Age of Souls”? For if my adventure actually happened, I was not asleep and dreaming immediately beforehand; at all events, it was extremely improbable that I was.
I was getting considerably strung up, when a tap came at the door, and Lilia came in, fresh, sweet in her muslin summer dress, like Dawn dispelling the dismal darkness of my thoughts.
“A quarter-past ten, and service begins at eleven,” she said.
“And it is about seven minutes’ walk to the church. Sit down, we are talking,” said Sir Roderick, dictatorially.
She looked wistfully at me.
“I thought you wanted to see the grounds,” she said.
“So I do, very much indeed,” I said.
My host did not look best pleased. He little knew what was in my mind.