"I suppose so. I couldn't swear, in a court of law, that I was awake. It happened—one evening, as I lay there, on her couch—remembering ... going back over things. And suddenly, out of the darkness, blossomed—that. Asleep or awake, my mind was alert enough to seize and hold the impression, without a glimmer of surprise ... till I came to, or woke up—which you will. Then my normal, sceptical self didn't know what to make of it. I've always dismissed that sort of thing as mere brain-trickery. But—a vivid, personal experience makes it ... not so easy. Of course, from reading and a few old photographs, I knew it was Chitor: and my chief concern was to record the vision in its first freshness. For three days I worked at it: only emerging now and then to snatch a meal. I began with those and that——"
He indicated a set of rough sketches and an impression in oils; a ghost of a city full of suggested beauty and mystery. "No joke, trying to model with one hand; but you wouldn't believe ... the swiftness ... the sureness ... as if my fingers knew...."
Roy could believe. Occasionally his own fingers behaved so.
"When it was done, I put it in here," his father went on, masking, with studied quietness, his elation at the effect on Roy. "I've shown it to no one—not even Aunt Helen. I couldn't write of it. I felt it would sound crazy——"
"Not to me," said Roy.
"Well, I couldn't tell that. And I've been waiting—for you."
"Since—when?"
"Since the third of March, this year."
Roy drew an audible breath. It was the anniversary of her passing. "All that time! How could you——? Why didn't you——?"
"Well—you know. You were obviously submerged—your novel, Udaipur, Lance.... You wouldn't have forgone all that ... if I know you, for a mere father. But you're here, at last, thank God. And—I want to know. You've seen Chitor, as it is to-day...."