Yet was it
vaguer, more distant, than that emitted by those other three flowers.
The exact impression received by the doctor at this moment was very
subtle. Precisely it was this: It seemed to him that he was gradually
coming into communication with a fourth mind, or soul; that this soul was
actually more strong, more vehement, even more determined, than the souls
of his three companions, but that some barrier removed it from him, set
it very far of. The flame of a match held to a man's eyes may dazzle him
more than the flame of a great fire on the horizon. This new flame was as
the latter in comparison to match-flames that had been flaring in the
doctor's eyes. And this great and distant flame burned slowly in a smoke
of mystery and upon the verge of dense darkness.
Never had the doctor known so peculiar, and even awe-striking, an
experience as that which he now underwent. What utterly bewildered him
was the circumstance of this undoubted new and definite personality
enclosed in this tiny room with him and with his three companions. He
was receiving the impression of the thoughts of a stranger. Yet there
was no stranger in the chamber. And he was vexed and curiously irritated
by the fact of the impression being at the same time very vague and very
violent, like the cry of a man which reaches you faintly from a very long
distance, but which you feel instinctively to have been uttered with the
frantic force of death or of despair.
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