The shadows ran away on all sides before the glare, and his aunt stooped
down and groped for the cigar case with the precious candle. Then they
discovered that the candle had not been _blown_ out at all; it had been
_crushed_ out. The wick was pressed down into the wax, which was
flattened as if by some smooth, heavy instrument.
How his companion so quickly overcame her terror, Shorthouse never
properly understood; but his admiration for her self-control increased
tenfold, and at the same time served to feed his own dying flame--for
which he was undeniably grateful. Equally inexplicable to him was the
evidence of physical force they had just witnessed. He at once
suppressed the memory of stories he had heard of "physical mediums" and
their dangerous phenomena; for if these were true, and either his aunt
or himself was unwittingly a physical medium, it meant that they were
simply aiding to focus the forces of a haunted house already charged to
the brim. It was like walking with unprotected lamps among uncovered
stores of gun-powder.
So, with as little reflection as possible, he simply relit the candle
and went up to the next floor.
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