“I trust not, indeed,” Dr. Silence said quietly. “But what makes you think the creature is starved?” He asked the question with his eyes straight on the other’s face. The prompt question explained to me why I had started, and I waited with just a tremor of excitement for the reply.

Sangree hesitated a moment, as though the question took him by surprise. But he met the doctor’s gaze unflinchingly across the fire, and with complete honesty.

“Really,” he faltered, with a little shrug of the shoulders, “I can hardly tell you. The phrase seemed to come out of its own accord. I have felt from the beginning that it was in pain and⁠—starved, though why I felt this never occurred to me till you asked.”

“You really know very little about it, then?” said the other, with a sudden gentleness in his voice.