I Make a Discovery.
The Terminus Hotel at Lyons is, as you know, a large, artistically furnished place at the Perrache Station, an hotel with a huge and garish restaurant below, decorated in the style known as art nouveau. It is a busy spot, where rushing travellers are continuously going and coming, and where the excitable Frenchman, fearing to lose his train, is seen at his best.
It was there we arrived about six o’clock, and at seven we sat together, a merry trio, at dinner. The cooking was perfect, the wines excellent, and after dinner Shaw mentioned that he had letters to write. Therefore I seized the opportunity to stroll out with Asta, for it was pleasant to walk after so many hours in the car.
She was dressed neatly in black coat and skirt, and a small straw hat trimmed with black ribbon—mourning for Guy Nicholson—and as we wandered out our careless footsteps led us across that wide square called the Cours du Midi, and down upon the Quai de la Charité beside the broad, swiftly flowing Rhone, the water of which ran crimson in the brilliant afterglow.
A hot, breathless evening, in which half Lyons seemed to be taking an airing along the Quais of that winding river-bank which traverses the handsome city. We had turned our backs upon the high railway bridge which spans the river, and set our faces towards the centre of the city, when I noticed that Asta seemed again very silent and thoughtful.
I inquired the reason, when she replied—
“I’ve been thinking over your curious experience of last night. I—I’ve been wondering.”
“Wondering what?”
“I’ve been trying to discern what connection your experience had with my own up in Yorkshire,” she said. “I saw the hand distinctly—a thin, scraggy hand just as you saw it. But I have remained silent because—well, because I could not convince myself that such a thing was actually a reality.”
“Describe the whole circumstance,” I urged. “On the occasion when you saw it, was the door of your room locked?”