With a cry, Father Renaudin started to his feet, speechless; he shook his head at them, looking with terrified gaze from an ashen, livid face. Then he clasped his hands to his eyes.
“Not this, oh, God, not this! Not Rondah, not Rondah, who has no strength!”
His utterance was slow and stifled; he fell senseless upon the floor.
Cold yet from horror, Regan raised him to the couch and, fearing the words of his return to consciousness, he sent Rondah into another apartment.
When, after some time, Father Renaudin recovered, he looked where she had stood, and, finding her gone, said to Regan:
“Never, never leave her! Watch! A doom is upon her! Oh, there are no prayers of mine, or deeds of yours which can avert it! Only do not leave her! To reveal more I am forbidden!”
If it had not been that it was impossible, Regan would have killed him for those last words; but he knew it could not be done. Smothering his futile anger, he turned his dreadful eyes away, with curses of mad rage in his heart because his teacher was so fanatically given to mysteries and silence; he asked quietly:
“Was it Gregg Dempster who stood on the cliff?”
“No! Gregg Dempster has been removed to another sphere, years removed! His influence, too, is gone! We must hope for no further help from him! As humanity fights, we must fight out our own fate! No! It was not Gregg Dempster who stood on the cliff!”