And the interposition was one of great horror,--entirely malignant, Valentine believed.
He had an impulse to spring up from the table, to turn on the light, and to say, "Let us make an end of this jugglery!" Yet he sat still, wondering why he did so.

A curiosity walked in his mind, pacing about till he could almost fancy he heard its footsteps.

He sat, then, as one awaiting an arrival, that has been heralded in some way, by a telegram, a message, a carrier-pigeon flown in at an open window.

But the herald, too, was horrible.

What then would follow it?
What was coming?
Valentine felt that he began to understand Marr's queer remark, "You are _en route_." At the first sitting he had felt a very vague suggestion of immoderate possibilities, made possibilities by the apparently futile position assumed at a table by himself and Julian.