He saw again the burly stranger wading through the crowd in the arena, shaking off the packed mob as the prow of a stately ship shakes off the water, to either side.
At length he started out of bed and glanced through the window.

The moving shadow still swept across the lighted shades of his father's room; so he donned bathrobe and slippers and went down the long hall.

At the door he did not stop to knock, for he was too deeply concerned by this time to pay any heed to convention.

He grasped the knob and threw the door wide open.

What happened then was so sudden that he could not be sure afterward what he had seen.