"I've been in long enough," she announced suddenly, "and breakfast must be ready. Come on, Gib, race me back to shore."
She was off like a trout, and I churned after her. We finished neck and neck, separated and went away to dress. At breakfast, which Davidson prepared simply but well of porridge, toast and eggs, I did not get to sit next to Sigrid; Davidson and Jake had found places at her left and right hands. I paid what attentions I could devise to Martha Vining, but if Sigrid was piqued by my courtliness in another direction, she gave no sign.
The meal over, I returned to my room, secured my copy of Ruthven and carried it outdoors to study. I chose a sun-drenched spot near the lodge, set my back to a tree, and leafed through the play, underlining difficult passages here and there. I remembered Varduk's announcement that we would never speak the play's last line in rehearsal, lest bad luck fall. He was superstitious, for all his apparent wisdom and culture; yet, according to the books Judge Pursuivant had lent me, so was Lord Byron, from whom Varduk claimed descent. What was the ill-omened last line, by the way?
I turned to the last page of the script.
The final line, as typewritten by Davidson, contained only a few words. My eyes found it:
"Ruthven (placing his hand on Mary's head):"
And no more than that. There was place for a speech after the stage direction, apparently the monster's involuntary cry for blessing upon the brave girl, but Davidson had not set down such a speech.
Amazed and in some unaccountable way uneasy, I walked around the corner of the lodge to where Martha Vining, seated on the door-step, also studied her lines. Before I had finished my first question, she nodded violently.
"It's the same way on my script," she informed me. "You mean, the last speech missing. I noticed last night, and mentioned it before breakfast to Miss Holgar. She has no last line, either."