It was as if such an end had actually been reached upon some psychic plane; so that now he but “usurped his life.” Never would he know what actually happened at that King’s Barton grave, any more than he would know what Miss Gault did after he left her in the Ramsgard Cemetery. But such things could not altogether pass. Must there not be some imprint of them left upon space itself? If so, such air-pictures might easily remain intact, even after the planet itself was uninhabited and frozen.

In his agitation he began fumbling at the handle of his stick, and he noted how the deep indents cut by Lob Torp on that night of the “Yellow Bracken” had grown smooth and slippery with handling.