“Think?” I said. “Of what?” My only thought was of my loved one.
He turned his head and looked at me.
“Oh,” he answered cynically, “of what we shall have for lunch to-morrow. Good Heavens!” he exclaimed, and in the light cast down upon us by the blood-red canopy flickering in the sky above I could see his eyes shining strangely, “Have you no sense at all of grandeur? Can’t you realise and appreciate the overpowering magnificence of all this? Have you no sentiment, romance or poetry at all in your conception? Don’t you feel the hand of Providence? Doesn’t this bring home to you the majesty of eternity better than any religion that has been tried or thought of? Really, Ashton, really...”
I was amazed at his sudden outburst of pent-up feeling—I had imagined him cold, undemonstrative, unemotional, a being without nerves and devoid of temperament. So his self-control and apparent calmness had been nothing but a mask. I think I liked him all the better for it.
We heard voices—women’s shrill, terrified voices. We were unable to locate them. Suddenly I started. Surely that was Vera’s voice! Yes, I recognised it.
Attentively we both listened. Then, as the flames shot up again, lighting up the meadows away to the woods, we both distinctly saw in silhouette a man and a woman struggling in the distance.
The man had her by the wrists. He was overpowering her. At that same moment the red glare sank, and both were hidden in the darkness.