Geoffrey paused with mouth half open, a little wreath of smoke curling from the corner of it.
"In what other way has an awful fate dogged Harry?" he asked.
Mr. Francis replied almost immediately.
"Those three accidents he had last spring," he said. "How strange they were! They quite unnerved me."
"He was thinking of the ice house," said Geoffrey to himself with absolute certainty. "That was a mistake." Then, aloud. "They were not so very serious," he said.
"No, but uncomfortable. And then to-day!"
"Yesterday, you mean," said Geoffrey, trying to trap him.
Mr. Francis looked up inquiringly.
"True, yesterday. How exact you are, my dear fellow! I had forgotten that it was, as the Irish say, to-morrow already. But how awful, how awful! That was what my strange premonition meant."
"It is odd that your premonition should have lasted all day," said Geoffrey, "when the danger was over by half past ten this morning."