Still, it was another man who came creeping to Geoffrey's room when the lights were extinguished and the castle was wrapped in slumber. There was an inner room lying out over the sea, which Geoffrey used indifferently for a smoking room and study.
"I can smoke my pipe here without a chance of our being overheard," he said. "Well, was the adventure this evening creepy enough for you?"
Geoffrey shuddered slightly. Flagrant, rioting dangers would have had no terrors for him. It was the unseen that played on the nerves of imagination.
"Horrible," he said, "but why this mystery?"
"As far as I am concerned, you mean? My dear Geoffrey, it is imperative that I should be regarded by everybody as a poor blind worm who is incapable for good or evil. I want people to pity me, to make way for me, to treat me as if I were of no account, a needless cumberer of the ground. I want to see that you prevent these tragedies by sheer chance. I will strike when the time comes!"
The hoarse voice had sunk to a whisper, the sightless eyes rolled, the thin fingers crooked as if dragging down an unseen foe to destruction. As suddenly Ralph changed his mood and laughed noiselessly.
"Let us not prophesy," he said. "What did you think of the episode?"
"I don't know what to think about it."
"Then you have no theory to offer?"
"No, uncle. I am in the dark. That is where the keen edge of the terror comes in. I should say it was the flowers. As the atmosphere of the room grew warmer, as the heat from the lamps drew out the fragrance of the blooms, the perfume seemed to become overpowering. The perfume riveted attention, arrested the senses, and gradually sense and feeling appeared to go altogether."