"Poor fellow! matters get worse and worse," thought the doctor. "Well, I must see this thing out."
Aloud he said:
"How soon did this vision come to torment you to-night?"
Awdrey rubbed his eyes.
"At first when I went to my room I was sleepy," he said. "I began to take off my things. Then I saw a globe of light in the further end of the room. At first it was merely light with no picture in the centre. Then faint shadows began to appear, and by slow degrees the perfect and intensely clear picture which I am now looking at became visible. I stared at it quite motionless for a time. I was absorbed by the deepest interest. Then a mad longing to see the face of the man who stands with his back to us, came over me. I walked about the room trying hard to get even a side view of him, but wherever I went he turned so as to keep his face away; wherever I went the face of Frere was the only one I could see. Then in a sort of despair, almost maddened in fact, I rushed from the room.
"Did you not leave the vision behind you?"
"Not I—it went straight in front of me. When I reached your room and opened the door it came in before me. I know now what I must do. I have been always standing more or less to the right of the picture. I must get to the left. I am going to follow it on to the Plain—I am going to trace it to the exact spot where that murder was committed. Will you come with me?"
"Yes, only first you must return to your room, and get into the rest of your clothes. At present you are without a coat."
"Am I? And yet I burn with heat. Well, I'll do what you want. I will do anything which gives me a chance of seeing that man's face."
A few moments later Rumsey and his patient found themselves in the white moonlight of the outer world. Awdrey was now quite silent, but Rumsey noticed that his footsteps faltered once or twice, and that he often paused as if to get his breath. He appeared to be like a man in a frantic hurry; he gazed straight before him, as if he were looking intently at one fixed object.