Certainly, I was always seeking for something here I could not find--an
explanation that continually evaded me. Nothing but these trivial hints
offered themselves. Lumped together, however, they had the effect of
defining the Shadow a little. I became more and more aware of its very
real existence. And, if I have made little mention of Frances and my
hostess in this connection, it is because they contributed at first
little or nothing towards the discovery of what this story tries to
tell. Our life was wholly external, normal, quiet, and uneventful;
conversation banal--Mrs. Franklyn's conversation in particular. They
said nothing that suggested revelation.
Both were in this Shadow, and both knew that they were in it, but
neither betrayed by word or act a hint of interpretation. They talked
privately, no doubt, but of that I can report no details.
And so it was that, after ten days of a very commonplace visit, I found
myself looking straight into the face of a Strangeness that defied
capture at close quarters. "There's something here that never happens,"
were the words that rose in my mind, "and that's why none of us can
speak of it."
And as I looked out of the window and watched the vulgar blackbirds,
with toes turned in, boring out their worms, I realized sharply that
even they, as indeed everything large and small in the house and
grounds, shared this strangeness, and were twisted out of normal
appearance because of it.
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