The Novel of the White Powder | Page 5

footsteps crossed the hall, and there was a pause at the door; I drew
a long, sick breath with difficulty, and saw my face white in a little
mirror, and he came in and stood at the door. There was an unutterable
horror shining in his eyes; he steadied himself by holding the back of a
chair with one hand, his lower lip trembled like a horse's, and he gulped
and stammered unintelligible sounds before he spoke.

"I have seen that man," he began in a dry whisper. "I have been sitting
in his presence for the last hour. My God! And I am alive and in my
senses! I, who have dealt with death all my life, and have dabbled with
the melting ruins of the earthly tabernacle. But not this, oh! not this,"
and he covered his face with his hands as if to shut out the sight of
something before him.
"Do not send for me again, Miss Leicester," he said with more
composure. "I can do nothing in this house. Good-bye."
As I watched him totter down the steps; and along the pavement
towards his house, it seemed to me that he had aged by ten years since
the morning.
My brother remained in his room. He called out to me in a voice I
hardly recognized that he was very busy, and would like his meals
brought to his door and left there, and I gave the order to the servants.
From that day it seemed as if the arbitrary conception we call time had
been annihilated for me; I lived in an ever-present sense of horror,
going through the routine of the house mechanically, and only speaking
a few necessary words to the servants. Now and then I went out and
paced the streets for an hour or two and came home again; but whether
I were without or within, my spirit delayed before the closed door of
the upper room, and, shuddering, waited for it to open. I have said that I
scarcely reckoned time; but I suppose it must have been a fortnight
after Dr. Haberden's visit that I came home from my stroll a little
refreshed and lightened. The air was sweet and pleasant, and the hazy
form of green leaves, floating cloud-like in the square, and the smell of
blossoms, had charmed my senses, and I felt happier and walked more
briskly. As I delayed a moment at the verge of the pavement, waiting
for a van to pass by before crossing over to the house, I happened to
look up at the windows, and instantly there was the rush and swirl of
deep cold waters in my ears, my heart leapt up and fell down, down as
into a deep hollow, and I was amazed with a dread and terror without
form or shape. I streched out a hand blindly through the folds of thick
darkness, from the black and shadowy valley, and held myself from
falling, while the stones beneath my feet rocked and swayed and tilted,

and the sense of solid things seemed to sink away from under me. I had
glanced up at the window of my brother's study, and at that moment the
blind was drawn aside, and something that had life stared out into the
world. Nay, I cannot say I saw a face or any human likeness; a living
thing, two eyes of burning flame glared at me, and they were in the
midst of something as formless as my fear, the symbol and presence of
all evil and all hideous corruption. I stood shuddering and quaking as
with the grip of ague, sick with unspeakable agonies of fear and
loathing, and for five minutes I could not summon force or motion to
my limbs. When I was within the door, I ran up the stairs to my
brother's room and knocked.
"Francis, Francis," I cried, "for Heaven's sake, answer me. What is the
horrible thing in your room? Cast it out, Francis; cast it from you."
I heard a noise as of feet shuffling slowly and awkwardly, and a
choking, gurgling sound, as if some one was struggling to find
utterance, and then the noise of a voice, broken and stifled, and words
that I could scarcely understand.
"There is nothing here," the voice said. "Pray do not disturb me. I am
not very well to-day."
I turned away, horrified, and yet helpless. I could do nothing, and I
wondered why Francis had lied to me, for I had seen the appearance
beyond the glass too plainly to be deceived, though it was but the sight
of a moment. And I sat still, conscious that there had been something
else, something I had seen in the first flash of terror, before those
burning eyes