Colin felt his breath catch in his throat, and a pulse beat there. This was not the voice of a shepherd come here for the lambing or for shelter, and a fantastic notion flashed into his head. Here was he, sleeping in a remote hut in the marsh at lambing-time, even as old Colin had done, and he asked himself whether some renewal or re-enactment of the legend was at hand. The idea scarcely seemed strange, so intimately did the belief in the legend beat in his blood. It was no shepherd who spoke....
That shape in the doorway seemed to him rather larger than it had been at first: perhaps it had moved a silent step nearer him. It had outlined itself a little more clearly now: the shape of the shoulders and the head was more sharply defined; round the head there was a faint luminousness like the halo the moonlight casts round a man’s shadow on the grass.
In the silence that followed Colin asked himself whether he was still asleep, whether the whole adventure was a dream, whether he would presently wake up and find himself in his bed at Stanier. And then the voice spoke again, and he knew that, whether he dreamed, or whether indeed he was awake, the substance of things unseen was in manifestation.
“Why did you save Dennis?” asked the quiet voice.
The question was utterly unexpected. But whoever this was, he had no claim to be answered. His Lord and Benefactor, if it was he, knew that his soul was set on evil and hate. And what right had any other power in heaven or earth or in the dark places to question him? Why he answered at all, he did not know; his voice seemed to take it upon itself to do so.
“I saved Dennis,” he said, “just simply because I chose to. It was my own business, and my will is free.”
“You might easily have been drowned,” said the voice. “Did you consider that?”
“I knew I was taking that risk,” said Colin.
“And did you consider what doom awaited you?”
“Yes.”