At sunrise I dressed, and on stepping from my room out into the fresh air of the corridor, I again felt that bewildering influence upon me, quite distinctly; yet not so strong as to cause me any inconvenience. The feeling was a kind of cold, creepy one, without any sudden shock.
During the day I lounged at Beryl’s side, endeavouring to obtain from her the truth of her midnight escapade. But she would tell me absolutely nothing. The man who had posed as her father was undoubtedly her enemy, and she held him in deadly fear. It was this latter fact that caused me at last to make a resolution, and in the idle hour before the dressing-bell went for dinner, I contrived to stroll alone with him out across the park.
With a good cigar between his lips, he walked as jauntily as a man of twenty, notwithstanding his grey hairs. He laughed and chatted merrily, recounting to me all the fun of last year’s house-party, with its ill-natured chatter and its summer flirtations.
Suddenly, when we were a long way from the house, skirting the quiet lake that lay deep in a hollow surrounded by a small wood, I turned to him resolutely, saying—
“Do you know that I have a distinct recollection that we have met before?”
He started almost imperceptibly, and glanced at me quickly with his small round eyes.
“I think not,” he answered. “Not, at least, to my knowledge.”
“Defects of memory are sometimes useful,” I replied. “Cannot you recall the twenty-fourth of July?”
“The twenty-fourth of July,” he repeated reflectively. “No. There is no event which fixes the date in my memory.”
His face had grown older. The light of youthfulness had gone out of it, leaving it the grey, ashen countenance of the Tempter.