I shuddered.
“What did you see?” I asked.
“Oh! don’t say you believe in it,” he said; “after all your jeers at me.”
“Did you see anything?” I insisted, nursing the crystal in the cave of my two hands. I stared into it and saw the faint pink of my magnified palm. No vision came to me; yet I was aware of some potency in the thing.
“Perhaps some reflection, some translation of one’s sub-consciousness....” I ventured.
Strickland sneered. “By God, I hope not,” he said.
“What were you—looking for?” I asked.
“For nothing. I wasn’t looking for anything,” he said. “I picked the thing up by the merest accident. I was going to give it to the little girl—as a plaything.”
“And then....” I prompted him.
“I saw a picture in it. It snatched my attention. I wasn’t thinking....”