He suppressed another violent shudder.
"In Heaven's name," he said, "what are you?"
"I am a dead man," came the answer. "Don't move! I will call your man in
a moment, but I must speak to you first. Do you feel all right?"
"Bobby!" Herne said.
"No, I am not Bobby. He died, you know, ages ago. They cut him up and
burned him. Don't move. I have stopped the bleeding, but it will easily
start again. Lean back--so! You needn't look at me. You will never see
me again. But if I hadn't shown you--once, you would never have
understood. Are you comfortable? Can you listen?"
"Bobby!" Herne said again.
He seemed incapable of anything but that one word, spoken over and over,
as though trying to make himself believe the incredible.
"I am not Bobby," the voice reiterated. "Put that out of your mind for
ever! He belonged to another life, another world. Don't you believe me?
Must I show you--again? Do you really want to talk with me face to
face?"
"Yes," Herne said, with abrupt resolution. "I will see you--talk with
you--as you are."
There was a brief pause, and he braced himself to face, without
blenching, the thing that a moment before, his soldier's training
notwithstanding, had turned him sick with horror.
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