Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/57

were visible at the top and bottom of the sheet. The words came to him at a glance, but they did not occupy his mind, which was fixed on the faint yellowish stain, embracing himself and Eve Milward in a common fate. It was perhaps due to the moment which had preceded this discovery that its effect on Geoffrey was so pronounced. Though we laugh easily at the superstitious, no man is entirely exempt from the feeling that his own destiny is of special concern. He will readily admit otherwise as a matter of argument, but the feeling will crop out in crucial moments, reason notwithstanding. Geoffrey did not ask himself if he should take this as a warning or a direction of Providence as to his future conduct; the effect went deeper than that. As his mind had momentarily slipped from the present into a vague, unrecallable past, so now it slipped forward into an equally vague future, when the coincidence was to establish itself among realities. A sort of mental powerlessness seemed gradually to creep upon him. The room darkened, and took on a mysterious, impenetrable vastness and gloom. Involuntarily he threw out his arms, striving to thrust back a tangle as of network that threatened to enmesh him in its folds. The effect of the physical action was instantaneous—he was again back in the narrow room, with the afternoon sunlight streaming through the open doorway. This trick of the imagination was less real to Geoffrey than its relation in so many words might lead the reader to suppose. It was but as if he had closed his eyes and suffered a vivid fancy to play with the horror which the bloodstain had evoked. He smiled a little grimly as he again turned his eyes on the letter. The imagina-