intellectual shock which was greater than all the others. He
stepped impulsively forward towards Madeleine, and then wavered
with a kind of wild humility. As he did so he caught sight of
another square face behind Madeleine's, a face with long grey
whiskers and an austere stare. It was old Durand, the girls'
father; and when Turnbull saw him he saw the last and worst
marvel of that monstrous night. He remembered Durand; he
remembered his monotonous, everlasting lucidity, his stupefyingly
sensible views of everything, his colossal contentment with
truisms merely because they were true. "Confound it all!" cried
Turnbull to himself, "if _he_ is in the asylum, there can't be
anyone outside." He drew nearer to Madeleine, but still
doubtfully and all the more so because she still smiled at him.
MacIan had already gone across to Beatrice with an air of fright.

Then all these bewildered but partly amicable recognitions were
cloven by a cruel voice which always made all human blood turn
bitter. The Master was standing in the middle of the room
surveying the scene like a great artist looking at a completed
picture. Handsome as he looked, they had never seen so clearly
what was really hateful in his face; and even then they could
only express it by saying that the arched brows and the long
emphatic chin gave it always a look of being lit from below, like
the face of some infernal actor.

"This is indeed a cosy party," he said, with glittering eyes.

The Master evidently meant to say more, but before he could say
anything M. Durand had stepped right up to him and was speaking.