Reality and hallucination, jostled one another in his thought, a giant note of interrogation written against each.

For which was the true and which the false?
Of necessity he distrusted the evidence of his own senses, finding sight and hearing in direct conflict thus.
The two or three minutes that followed were among the most profoundly disagreeable Tom ever had spent.

But at last, a door opened below, letting forth a shaft of mellow lamp-light.

It touched the flower-beds on the left edging the lawn, giving the geraniums form and colour, laying down a delicate carpet of green, transmuting black into glowing scarlet.
Tall and spare in his grey and white sleeping-suit, Sir Charles Verity sauntered out, and stood, smoking, looking out to sea.
Earlier that night, downstairs in the sitting-room, he seemed a storm centre, generating much perplexity and disquiet.

But now Tom welcomed his advent with a sense of almost absurd satisfaction.