Dr. Silence left the mat and began walking to and fro about the room, both hands plunged deep into the pockets of his shooting-jacket. Tremendous vitality streamed from him. I never took my eyes off the small, moving figure; small yes⁠—and yet somehow making me think of a giant plotting the destruction of worlds. And his manner was gentle, as always, soothing almost, and his words uttered quietly without emphasis or emotion. Most of what he said was addressed, though not too obviously, to the Colonel.

“The violence of this sudden attack,” he said softly, pacing to and fro beneath the bookcase at the end of the room, “is due, of course, partly to the fact that tonight the moon is at the full”⁠—here he glanced at me for a moment⁠—“and partly to the fact that we have all been so deliberately concentrating upon the matter. Our thinking, our investigation, has stirred it into unusual activity. I mean that the intelligent force behind these manifestations has realised that someone is busied about its destruction. And it is now on the defensive: more, it is aggressive.”