"I said that? When did I say it?"
"Yesterday."
"Yesterday? I daresay. But I didn't sleep last night. It wouldn't let me."
"Very few people do sleep," said Agatha, "for the first time in a strange place."
"The place isn't strange. That's what I complain of. That's what keeps me awake. No place ever will be strange when It's there. And It was there last night."
"Darling——" Milly murmured.
"You know what I mean," he said. "The Thing that keeps me awake. Of course if I'd slept last night I'd have known it wasn't there. But when I didn't sleep——"
He left it to them to draw the only possible conclusion.
They dropped the subject. They turned to other things and talked a little while, sitting with him in his room with the drawn blinds. From time to time when they appealed to him, he gave an urbane assent, a murmur, a suave motion of his hand. When the light went, they lit a lamp. Agatha stayed and dined with them, that being the best thing she could do.
At nine o'clock she rose and said good-night to Harding Powell. He smiled a drawn smile.