Thus far Damaris' entire consciousness had resided in and been limited to
her auditory sense; concentration being too absorbed and intense to allow
room for reasoning, still less for scepticism or even astonishment. She
had watched with her ears--as the blind watch--desperate to interpret,
instant by instant, inch by inch, this reconstructed tragedy of long-dead
man and long-dead beast. There had been no thinking round the central
interest, no attempted reading of its bearing upon normal events. Mind
and imagination were fascinated by it to the exclusion of all else. It
acted as an extravagant dream acts, abrogating all known laws of cause
and effect, giving logic and science the lie, negativing probability,
making the untrue true, the impossible convincingly manifest.
Not, indeed, until she beheld Mary Fisher, deep-bosomed and comely, in
black gown, white apron and cap, moving within those rooms
downstairs--still echoing, as they surely must, to that tumultuous and
rather ghastly equine transit--did the extraordinary character of the
occurrence flash into fullness of relief.
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