He felt its withering hand clutch at his shoulder. Its fingers seared through the lamb's-wool that cloaked them—through the silken mesh of his pajama coat beneath.
Death chanted a victorious pæan in his ears, as with open arms it waited at his back. And before him something beckoned that would not be denied.
Out there in the dark it stood with wooing finger and cool, sweet breath, waiting, too. But whether it was death's other self—or whether it was life—he could not know.
His blanket dropped—a flag of flame behind him. And he pitched forward, turning and returning, as his body dropped downward into the blackness below.
And, oddly enough, as he fell there was before him a woman's face—but not that of Nina Darling. It was younger, frailer, less trained by experience, and no less beautiful—the face of Rosamond Veynol.
He fell on his back upon a slanting slate roof, jarring his briefly recovered breath quite out of him for the moment. And then he rolled, over and over and over—three times—to drop again. This time into a mass of tall dahlia bushes and the soft, spongy mold beneath.
"Not a scratch on you, by Jove!" It was the Honorable Julian who exclaimed it, in unqualified, exuberant delight, as two of the grooms who had heard the fall and hurried to pick up the fallen object, having led him into the glow of the pyre that had once been Carfen House, rubbed their trained hands over bones, joints, muscles, and sinews without eliciting a single protesting cry.
"A miracle! Thank God! Thank God!"
But Carleigh was not so sure about the scratches. He had certainly hit his back a resounding thump on that slate roof, and though he didn't feel it now—who ever did feel anything in the relief of regaining life after having calmly, or not calmly, said good-by to it—what might he not feel to-morrow?
In point of fact he was still dazed, as he might well be. He stood gaping, mute, an almost hideous figure with blackened face, singed hair, and rent and soil-stained garments.