You are--" He hesitated to speak the words.
Then it was that Kent saw fully and clearly the whole monstrous situation.

It had taken time for it to fasten itself upon him.

In a general way it had been clear to him a few moments before; now, detail by detail, it closed in upon him, and his muscles tightened, and Father Layonne saw his jaw set hard and his hands clench.

Death was gone.

But the mockery of it, the grim exultation of the thing over the colossal trick it had played, seemed to din an infernal laughter in his ears.
But--he was going to live! That was the one fact that rose above all others.