‘Yes, it’s very late,’ Margaret told him. ‘Wouldn’t you like to go to sleep now?’ But this was only a little part of herself, a little mechanical part, that was talking, though pity for him remained. The rest of her was darkly bewildered and on edge. The soft slow pat-patter of his voice and this shuttered room and thick, haunted air were beating down her spirit.
‘Not yet,’ came the voice again, answering her question. ‘There’ll be—plenty of time to sleep—soon. There’s still something left—to tell you—for there may be—danger.’
‘Danger!’ she cried, shooting a glance at Philip. Was he thinking of Morgan? Was he thinking at all? Perhaps it was he who was mad, far crazier than the others, and was dragging them and the whole house into some long nightmare spun out of loneliness and pain.
Philip found his voice now. Here, he felt, he could ask questions and be answered. ‘Danger? Do you mean from Morgan?’
‘No—not directly. We keep him here—because of my brother, Saul.’
‘Saul?’ But something was swiftly taking shape in Philip’s mind even as he cried out the name. That door.
‘Ah!—they have said nothing—about Saul?’ It came with maddening deliberation.
‘No, no; what about him?’ Margaret tore the question out of a tormented mind. Why didn’t he hurry, hurry?
‘It was on him—there fell—the heaviest blow. A raging madness. At times—he is a dangerous maniac. Always he wanted—to destroy—to wipe out everything—so that life—could be made—over again. There was—you see—a kind of nobility—in Saul—but now his mind—lives—in darkness. Not always—but the madness returns—to destroy him—the destroyer.’
‘Where is he?’ asked Margaret, shakily. The question was directed at the bed but actually she was looking at Philip, who was now nodding his head and frowning as he always did when he thought he knew something important.