Tresler spoke lightly and finished up with a laugh. But he didn’t feel like laughter. This objection came as a shock to him. He had pictured such a different meeting.
Diane shook her head. “I can say all I have to say in less time than that, Jack. Promise me that you will not misunderstand me. You know my heart, dear. It is all yours, but, but—Jack, I did not tell all I knew at the inquest.”
She paused, but Tresler made no offer to help her out. “I knew father could see at night. He was what Mr. Osler calls a—Nyc—Nyctalops. That’s it. It’s some strange disease and not real blindness at all, as far as I can make out. He simply couldn’t see in daylight because there was something about his eyes which let in so much light, that all sense of vision was paralyzed, and at such time he suffered intense pain. But when evening came, in the moonlight, or late twilight; in fact at any time when there was no glare of light, just a soft radiance, he could not only see but was possessed of peculiarly acute vision. How he kept his secret for so many years I don’t know. I understand why he did, but, even now, I cannot understand what drove him to commit the dreadful deeds he did, so wealthy and all as he was.”
Tresler thought he could guess pretty closely. But he waited for her to go on.
“Jack, I discovered that he could see at night when you were ill, just before you recovered consciousness,” she went on, in a solemn, awestruck tone.
“Ah!”
“Yes, while you were lying there insensible you narrowly escaped being murdered.”
Again she paused, and shuddered visibly.
“I was afraid of something. His conduct when you were brought in warned me. He seemed to resent your existence; he certainly resented your being in the house, but most of all my attendance on you. I was very watchful, but the strain was too much, and, one night, feeling that the danger of sleep for me was very real, I barricaded the stairs. I did my utmost to keep awake, but foolishly sat down on my own bed and fell asleep. Then I awoke with a start; I can’t say what woke me. Anyway, realizing I had slept, I became alarmed for you. I picked up the light and went out into the hall, where I found my barricade removed——”
“Yes, and your father at my bedside, with his hands at my throat.”