I lost consciousness for a time. I recall awakening briefly at the sensation of being lifted under my arms. It was Davrin Hurchur, dragging me bodily back into the old house, but of course I don’t remember that bit. I shivered feverishly. “It was so warm earlier,” I stammered through chattering teeth, “I must be ill.”

“It’s been cool all day,” Davrin insisted.

He propped me up on the tea room sofa and had Henrietta bring blankets and hot tea. I remember that part. I remember feeling the tea wash down my throat, it’s aura of warmth surging through my body, gently tugging my freezing extremities out of their numbness.

I tried to tell him what had happened – about the man in the garden and how his mother had saved me. Not the man’s mother, of course. Davrin’s. His eyes shot glimpses at me filled half with skepticism, half with concern. Not for the first time, I got the feeling that he would have rather been as far away from the old house as he could were it not for his obligations to it.

But then again, perhaps any impressions I formed on that unusual afternoon are even now best taken with a grain of salt.

Mrs. Duvenmeyer entered the room. When she saw the state I was in, she pulled up a chair and wordlessly expressed her intent to watch over me as I lay there for the remainder of the day. I tried to talk with her, but I couldn’t find words to adequately express my thoughts. And so after a time, I just opted to share in her silence.