"Now, Miss Carroll, can you remember exactly what Bram said to you that night? Something about fighting something, wasn't it?"
"I've tried for sixty years to put it out of my mind, James. But I remember every word, I think." She was silent for a moment.
"I was beside him on the buggy seat. It was a warm evening, late in spring. I had told him that I loved him, and ... he had responded. He said that he would have spoken long before, but that he had not dared. Now there was that which I must know.
"His life was not his own, he said. He was not ... native to this world. He was an agent of a mighty power, and he had trailed a band of criminals...." She broke off. "I could not truly understand that part, James. I fear it was too incoherent. He raved of evil beings who lurked in the shadows of a cave. It was his duty to wage each night an unceasing battle with occult forces."
"What kind of battle? Were these ghosts, or demons, or what?"
"I don't know. Evil powers which would be unloosed on the world, unless he met them at the portal as the darkness fell and opposed them."