We took a few puffs, he watching the fire, and I his firelit face.

"It must seem strange to you to be sitting with the only man who
lived to tell the tale!"

The egotism of this speech was not wholly gratuitous. I thought
it did seem strange to him: that a needless constraint was put upon
him by excessive consideration for my feelings. I desired to set
him at his ease as he had set me at mine. On the contrary, he
seemed quite startled by my remark.

"It is strange," he said, with a shudder, followed by the biggest
sip of brandy-and-water he had taken yet. "It must have been
horrible - horrible!" he added to himself, his dark eyes staring
into the fire.

"Ah!" said I, "it was even more horrible than you suppose or can
ever imagine."

I was not thinking of myself, nor of my love, nor of any particular
incident of the fire that still went on burning in my brain. My
tone was doubtless confidential, but I was meditating no special
confidence when my companion drew one with his next words. These,
however, came after a pause, in which my eyes had fallen from his
face, but in which I heard him emptying his glass.

"What do you mean?" he whispered. "That there were other
circumstances - things which haven't got into the papers?"