“What you said—your prophesy—the comfort of the sea—the deeper meaning—”
He leaped to his feet.
“Don't think anything more of it. They were just foolish words to comfort you. You and I seem to have been on the Edge of Beyond and looked over, and we 're not quite normal. We must get down now to practical things. I 'm just what I always was, dear, a fantastic person who rode with you into fairyland. I am still. Nothing more.”
“Are you quite sure?” suddenly asked a deep voice out of the blackness of the room.
Stella with a little cry of fright sprang to Herold for protection. For a second or two they were still. In their exaltation the question seemed to come from some vast depth of the abysm of time. Their hearts beat fast, and they clung together, listening, and there was not a sound. Then the lightning played its dancing daylight about the room, and they saw John Risca standing by the door. They sprang apart.
In another moment the room was flooded with electric light. The drawing-room, for all its beauty, looked mean and unimportant. The lights showed up glaringly an old Florentine tapestry over the chimney-piece. It seemed to have singularly little relation to life. It jarred impertinently.
“I came in to find Walter,” said John; “I did n't think Stella was still up. It's late. You did n't hear me. I'm sorry I inadvertently overheard.”
“There 's nothing, my dear John, that you could not have heard,” said Herold.
John came forward in his lumbering way.
“I know that, Walter.”