Jerry told me that at this moment he seemed suddenly to grow strangely calm. The noises in his head had ceased and he felt a curious sense of quiet exaltation. He couldn't explain this. I think it was a purely mental reaction after many months of spiritual coma. He got to his feet and even before they heard the sounds of his footsteps he stood before them.
They must have been very much alarmed at Jerry's appearance for, after dashing hotfoot through the underbrush and crawling among the rocks, his clothing must have been disarranged and his hair dirty and disordered. The expression of his face, too, in spite of his boasted calm, could hardly have been pleasant to contemplate, for I had had a glimpse of it that morning in the motor and I am sure that for an hour or more he had been mad--quite mad. He said that they sprang apart suddenly and that Lloyd rose with a swaggering air and faced him. But it seemed that the current of Jerry's thought was diverted by Marcia, who had started up and then sank back upon the rock, addressing him in her softest tones.
"Why, Jerry!" she cried. "How you startled me!"
It was the first time, Jerry said, that the caressing tones of the girl's voice had made no impression upon him. In two strides he was alongside of her, within arm's reach of both of them. He looked dangerous, I think, for Lloyd edged off a little. Marcia kept her gaze fixed upon his face and what she read there was hardly reassuring.
"Jerry!" she cried again. "What does this mean? Your clothes are torn; your face scratched. Has--has something happened to you?"
The question was unfortunate, for it loosened Jerry's thick tongue.
"Yes. Something's happened," he muttered, moving a hand across his brows as though to clear his thoughts. And then:
"Waked! I don't understand," her voice still gentle, appealing, incredulous.
"Oh," she started back at that and the venturesome Lloyd took a pace forward.
"I say, Benham, I--" He got no further, for Jerry without even looking at him, swept his left arm around, the gesture of a giant bothered by a troublesome insect. But it caught the fellow full in the chest, and sent him reeling backward. Jerry's business just now was with Marcia Van Wyck.