I spoke not a word, however.

I could not; a weight seemed to rest upon me, my free agency was gone.
"How do you know they are in this direction ?" she said at length.

"We have come a circuitous route." "They surely are," I said.

The words were dragged out of me, as if by sheer force of another will, while I looked vacantly before me.
"Are you well, Mr.Blake ?" she asked again.

"You look strange." "Well, well," I remember saying.