It was for me a moment of great peace. I did not know then that it was the last, the very last moment of peace, the end of the old innocent world, the final moment before I was plunged into the nightmare of which these ensuing pages tell the story.

What happened after that, and will be related later, was something entirely unexpected and so awful that Ludens had never spoken about it afterwards to anyone.

If at that moment Clement had caught sight of the dog and had managed to capture him, the fates of a number of people in this story would have been entirely different. Such is the vast play of chance in human lives.

Or did I know by intuition that wonderful and terrible things were really imminent at last, trembling into being just behind the curtain of the future?

I just hope — if he does come — it won't be some sort of horror show.

Nothing happened; yet there were disturbing signs and portents.

Because of what you have done things will happen later which can't possibly be foreseen.

The morning brought the crisis of my life. But it was not anything that I could have conceived of in my wildest imaginings.

Coming events do cast shadows.