But what cast a shadow to-night?"
Julian laughed with some apparent uneasiness.
"Perhaps a coming event," he exclaimed.
Valentine looked at him rather gravely.
"That is exactly what I felt," he said.
"Explain. For I was only joking."
"I felt, perhaps it was only a fancy, that this second sitting of ours
brought some event a stage nearer, a stage nearer on its journey."
"To what?"
"I felt--to us."
"Fancy."
"Probably. You didn't feel it?"
"I? Oh, I scarcely know what I felt. I must say, though, that squatting
in the dark, and saying nothing for such an age, and--and all the rest of
it, doesn't exactly toughen one's nerves. That little demon of a Rip
quite gave me the horrors when he started barking. What fools we are! I
should think nothing of mounting a dangerous horse, or sailing a boat in
rough weather, or risking my life as we all do half our time in one way
or another. Yet a dog and a dark room give me the shudders. Funny, Val,
isn't it?"
Valentine answered, "If it is a dog and a dark room."
"What else can it possibly be?" Julian said with an accent of rather
unreasonable annoyance.
"I don't know. But I did draw the curtain completely over the door
to-night. Julian, I am getting interested in this.
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