"She's asleep. It's somnambulistic. The shock might injure her
permanently."
I turned and peered closely into his face. He was absolutely calm. I
began to understand a little more, catching, I suppose, something of his
strong thinking.
"Walking in her sleep, you mean?"
He nodded. "She's on her way to meet him. From the very beginning he
must have drawn her--irresistibly."
"But the torn tent and the wounded flesh?"
"When she did not sleep deep enough to enter the somnambulistic trance
he missed her--he went instinctively and in all innocence to seek her
out--with the result, of course, that she woke and was terrified--"
"Then in their heart of hearts they love?" I asked finally.
John Silence smiled his inscrutable smile. "Profoundly," he answered,
"and as simply as only primitive souls can love. If only they both come
to realise it in their normal waking states his Double will cease these
nocturnal excursions. He will be cured, and at rest."
The words had hardly left his lips when there was a sound of rustling
branches on our left, and the very next instant the dense brushwood
parted where it was darkest and out rushed the swift form of an animal
at full gallop.
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