Pacing
restlessly back and forth across his room, he recalled the scenes of
that night, and of days and nights that had followed. Brokaw had given
him the key that was unlocking door after door. "Guess he was a little
crazy," Brokaw had said, speaking of Tavish as he had last known him on
the Firepan. Crazy! Going mad! And at last he had killed himself. Was it
possible that a man of Tavish's sort could be haunted for so long by
spectres of the past? It seemed unreasonable. He thought of Father
Roland and of the mysterious room in the Chateau, where he worshipped at
the shrine of a woman and a child who were gone.
He clenched his hands, and stopped himself. What had leapt into his mind
was as startling to his inner consciousness as the unexpected flash of
magnesium in a dark room. It was unthinkable--impossible; and yet,
following it, he found himself face to face with question after question
which he made no effort to answer. He was dazed for a moment as if by
the terrific impact of a thing which had neither weight nor form.
Tavish, the woman, the girl--Father Roland! Absurd. He shook himself,
literally shook himself, to get rid of that wildly impossible idea. He
drove his mind back to the photograph of the girl--and the woman.
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