The air was warmer than it had been the day before, and I donned bathing-trunks and went downstairs, treading softly to let Jake snore blissfully on. Almost at the door of the boathouse I came face to face with Davidson, who smiled disarmingly and held out his hand. He urged me to forget the brief hostility that had come over us at rehearsal; he was quite unforced and cheerful about it, yet I surmised that Varduk had bade him make peace with me. However, I agreed that we had both been tired and upset, and we shook hands cordially.
Then I turned toward the water, and saw Sigrid lazily crawling out into the deep stretches with long, smooth strokes. I called her name, ran in waist-deep, and swam as swiftly as I could, soon catching up. She smiled in welcome and turned on her side to say good morning. In her brief bathing-suit she did not look so gaunt and fragile. Her body was no more than healthily slim, and quite firm and strong-looking.
As we swam easily, I was impelled to speak of my dream, and she smiled again.
“I think that was rather beautiful, I mean about the heavens below your feet,” she said. “Symbolism might have something to say about it. In a way the vision was prophetic—Judge Pursuivant has sent word that he will call on us.”
“Perhaps the rest was prophetic, too,” I ventured boldly. “You and I together, Sigrid—and heaven at our feet—”
“I’ve been in long enough,” she announced suddenly, “and breakfast must be ready. Come on, Gib, race me back to shore.”
She was off like a trout, and I churned after her. We finished neck and neck, separated and went away to dress. At breakfast, which Davidson prepared simply but well of porridge, toast and eggs, I did not get to sit next to Sigrid; Davidson and Jake had found places at her left and right hands. I paid what attentions I could devise to Martha Vining, but if Sigrid was piqued by my courtliness in another direction, she gave no sign.
The meal over, I returned to my room, secured my copy of Ruthven and carried it outdoors to study. I chose a sun-drenched spot near the lodge, set my back to a tree, and leafed through the play, underlining difficult passages here and there. I remembered Varduk’s announcement that we would never speak the play’s last line in rehearsal, lest bad luck fall. He was superstitious, for all his apparent wisdom and culture; yet, according to the books Judge Pursuivant had lent me, so was Lord Byron, from whom Varduk claimed descent. What was the ill-omened last line, by the way?
I turned to the last page of the script.
The final line, as typewritten by Davidson, contained only a few words. My eyes found it:
Ruthven (placing his hand on Mary’s head):
And no more than that. There was place for a speech after the stage direction, apparently the monster’s involuntary cry for blessing upon the brave girl, but Davidson had not set down such a speech.
Amazed and in some unaccountable way uneasy, I walked around the corner of the lodge to where Martha Vining, seated on the doorstep, also studied her lines. Before I had finished my first question, she nodded violently.
“It’s the same way on my script,” she informed me. “You mean, the last speech missing. I noticed last night, and mentioned it before breakfast to Miss Holgar. She has no last line, either.”
A soft chuckle drifted down upon us. Varduk had come to the open door.
“Davidson must have made a careless omission,” he said. “Of course, there is only one typescript of the play, with carbon copies. Well, if the last line is missing, isn’t it a definite sign that we should not speak it in rehearsal?”
He rested his heavy gaze upon me, then upon Martha Vining, smiled to conclude the discussion, and drew back into the hallway and beyond our sight.
Perhaps I may be excused for not feeling completely at rest on the subject.
Judge Pursuivant arrived for lunch, dressed comfortably in flannels and a tweed jacket, and his performance at table was in healthy contrast to Varduk, who, as usual, ate hardly anything. In the early afternoon I induced the judge to come for a stroll up the slope and along the main road. As soon as we were well away from the lodge, I told him of Jake’s adventure, the outcome of the sword-accident at rehearsal, and the air of mystery that deepened around the omitted final speech of the play.
“Perhaps I’m being nervous and illusion-ridden,” I began to apologize in conclusion, but he shook his great head.
“You’re being nothing of the sort, Connatt. Apparently my semi-psychic intuition was good as gold. I did perfectly right in following this drama and its company out here into the wilderness.”
“You came deliberately?” I asked, and he nodded.
“My friend’s cabin in the neighborhood was a stroke of good luck, and I more than half courted the invitation to occupy it. I’ll be frank, Connatt, and say that from the outset I have felt a definite and occult challenge from Varduk and his activities.”
He chopped at a weed with his big malacca stick, pondered a moment, then continued.
“Your Mr. Varduk is a mysterious fellow. I
