And again she murmured: "Yes, I understand."
"And then you will walk on—into the air. You will do this at midnight."
She murmured, "At midnight"; and on a sudden he snapped his fingers violently three times before her eyes, and she sprang up, wide awake, and stared at him, looking at him in perplexity.
"You've been asleep for ever so long," he said, with a smile. "You must be tired; go to your room."
She looked at him in a dazed fashion, and passed her hand across her forehead. "What were we speaking of?" she asked him, as though referring to the conversation they had had before he had sent her into that species of trance.
"Nothing—nothing that matters now," he said, moving towards the door.
Fearing that he might come in my direction after he had sent her from the room, I vaulted over the railing of the verandah, which was only raised a few feet above the level of the ground. And so presently came round by the side entrance into the house, and, as was my custom, went up to the doctor's study to smoke with him.
I found him pacing up and down, chewing the butt of a cigar that had long gone out. He glanced up quickly when I entered, and jerked his head towards the open drawer in the desk where the cigars were.
"I must ask you to take your cigar and smoke it elsewhere to-night," he said. "I have work to do, and I am very busy. Good-night."
I longed to stop and talk with him—cursed my own impotent position, which gave me no chance of trying conclusions with him and befriending the girl. I remembered bitterly the words she had said to me at the foot of the staircase on the previous night, when she had begged me not to leave her alone in that house. So I went away, reluctantly enough, to smoke my cigar elsewhere.