As for the speaker, no sooner were the words out of his lips, than, as was the case in the morning, he relapsed into a condition of trance. Nurse, bending over him, announced the fact.
‘He’s gone off again!—What an extraordinary thing!—I suppose it is real.’ It was clear, from the tone of her voice, that she shared the doubt which had troubled the policeman. ‘There’s not a trace of a pulse. From the look of things he might be dead. Of one thing I’m sure, that there’s something unnatural about the man. No natural illness I ever heard of, takes hold of a man like this.’
Glancing up, she saw that there was something unusual in my face; an appearance which startled her.
‘Why, Miss Marjorie, what’s the matter!—You look quite ill!’
I felt ill, and worse than ill; but, at the same time, I was quite incapable of describing what I felt to nurse. For some inscrutable reason I had even lost the control of my tongue,—I stammered.
‘I—I—I’m not feeling very well, nurse; I—I—I think I’ll be better in bed.’
As I spoke, I staggered towards the door, conscious, all the while, that nurse was staring at me with eyes wide open. When I got out of the room, it seemed, in some incomprehensible fashion, as if something had left it with me, and that It and I were alone together in the corridor. So overcome was I by the consciousness of its immediate propinquity, that, all at once, I found myself cowering against the wall,—as if I expected something or someone to strike me.
How I reached my bedroom I do not know. I found Fanchette awaiting me. For the moment her presence was a positive comfort,—until I realised the amazement with which she was regarding me.
‘Mademoiselle is not well?’
‘Thank you, Fanchette, I—I am rather tired. I will undress myself to-night—you can go to bed.’