Читать книгу Strayers from Sheol - Herbert Russell Wakefield - Страница 5

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“Amelia,” said Miss Prunella Pendleham, “I have received a most impertinent letter this morning.”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham?”

“It is from some Society, and it has the insolence to suggest that this house is haunted by ghosts. Now you know that to be false, utterly false.”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham,” said Amelia listlessly.

“Do I detect a hesitant note in your tone? You mean what you say, I trust?”

“Oh yes, Miss Pendleham.”

“Very well. Now this Society actually wished to send down an investigator to examine and report on the house. I have replied that if any such person enters the grounds, he will be prosecuted for trespass. Here is my letter. Take it and post it at once.”

“Very well, Miss Pendleham.”

“You always seem so glad to get out of the house, Amelia! I wonder why. Now make haste there and back.”

A little later Miss Amelia Lornon was hurrying down the drive of Carthwaite Place. But as soon as she knew she was out of eye-shot from its upper windows, she slackened her pace. This she did for two reasons; she was feeling terribly frail and ill that morning, and to be out of that house, even for half an hour, meant a most blessed relief from that anguish which is great fear.

To reach the post-office of the little hamlet she had to pass the Rectory. Mrs. Redvale, the Rector’s wife, was glancing out of the drawing-room window at the time.

“There’s Amelia,” she said to her husband. “I’ve never seen her looking so ill. Poor creature! It’s time you did something about her, Claud, in my opinion.”

She was a handsome and determined-looking woman, quite obviously wearing the trousers, and her voice was sharply authoritative.

“What can I do, my dear?” replied the Rector with the plaintive testiness of the conscience-moved weakling.

“You can and must do something. You can listen to me for one thing. I’ve been meaning to have this out with you for some time; ever since I realized what was going on. That sight of her convinces me it must be now, at once. If she dies without our having done a hand’s turn to save her, I shall never know a minute’s peace again; and I don’t think you will either. Come quickly! Here she is going back.”

The Rector reluctantly went to the window. What he saw brought a look of genuine distress to his kindly, diffident face. “Yes,” he sighed, “I can see what you mean only too well.”

“Now sit down,” ordered his spouse. “I know we’re in a difficult position; Miss Pendleham puts two pounds in the plate every Sunday, which is an enormous help to us. ‘There are my servants’ wages,’ she seems to say, as she does it. But she is a very evil old woman; how evil, I don’t think either of us fully realises.”

“Yet she does come to church,” protested the Rector.

“Yes, she comes to church,” replied his wife sardonically, “and like a great many other people for a quite ulterior motive; she wants to keep us quiet, and she bribes us to do so—don’t argue—I know I’m right! Now we’ve been here only six months, but we’ve learnt quite a lot in that time. We’ve learnt that the Pendleham family have always shown a vicious, inherited streak; drunkards, ruthless womanisers, and worse, even criminals—and just occasionally a brilliant exception. This old woman is the last of the line, and it’ll be a very good thing when the horrid brood is extinct, in my opinion.”

“Of course,” said the Rector, “we have to trust Miles’s opinion for all this, really. And we know he’s utterly biased against her; he won’t even speak to her.”

“He’s been Churchwarden here for forty years; so he ought to know,” replied Mrs. Redvale. “Besides, he loses financially by his attitude—she never buys a thing at his shop. He strikes me as a perfectly honest and sincere old man. Don’t you think so?”

“I must say I do.”

“Well then, what’s his story? That she was crossed in love when very young, some other woman, as she believes, stealing her man away. So she made up her mind to have revenge on her sex in her own stealthy, devilish way. He thinks her mind was permanently tainted at that time; that she is actually, if not technically, insane.”

“It all sounds so melodramatic!” murmured the Rector.

“Melodramatic doesn’t mean impossible,” answered his wife sharply; “there’s plenty of real melodrama in the world. Now Miles says she has had five companions since she marooned herself in that house thirty-five years ago. Three have died there and two escaped quickly, declaring Miss Pendleham was a devil and the house hell. And now there’s the sixth, Amelia; and she’s dying, too.”

“Dying of what?” asked the Rector.

“Of terror, if nothing else!”

“She could leave like those other two.”

“That’s so easy to say! You might say it of a rabbit in a stoat’s snare. When you’re sufficiently frightened you can neither run nor struggle. And she’s in a hopelessly weak position; ageing, penniless, naturally will-less and pliant. She’d never summon up courage to escape on her own.”

“But she seems, in a way, to like Miss Pendelham’s company!”

“Simply because she dreads being alone in that foul house. Now you know it’s haunted, Claud.”

“My dear Clara, you put me in a most difficult position, because, as you know, I agreed with Miss Pendleham, there were no such entities as ghosts.”

“Don’t be a humbug, Claud! You said that only out of politeness and a desire to please. You knew it was a lie when you said it.”

“My dear!”

“No cant! You remember when we first went there what was looking out of the window on the first floor?”

“There seemed to be something for a moment.”

“Was it a small boy with his face covered with blood?”

“I got such a fleeting glimpse, my dear.”

“Was it Miss Pendleham or Amelia?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“They are the only people living in the house. And I told you what I saw when I went to powder my nose. I can see it now! Do you believe me?”

“I’ve never known you to tell a pointless lie. Yet a bush sometimes closely resembles a bear.”

“But a little dead girl doesn’t resemble a bush! And you heard that scream?”

“I thought I heard something—a curious cry—it might have been a bird.”

“A bird! How would you like to live in that house with that sort of thing! You’d even—like Amelia—prefer Miss Pendleham’s company to Theirs. It often makes me feel physically sick to think of her there. If we don’t do something to save that poor woman, I shall be plagued by remorse till I die!”

“Do me the justice, Clara, to believe that is becoming true of me, also.”

“I wonder if you realise it as I do! I’m sensitive to places like that, and always have been. The very motes in the sunbeams there seem to make beastly patterns. I don’t wonder Amelia is dying by inches, has been dying for years. She told me, that when They are around her, the kettle will not boil. In other words, her brain is going as her body gives up the struggle!”

“Well, what can I do?” exclaimed the Rector. “Tell me, Clara! You are wiser than I in the affairs of this world, if I know more about the next.”

“And if there is such a place!” rapped Clara.

The Rector sighed. “I’m deeply grieved you’re such a skeptic, Clara.”

“Nonsense! Every parson should have an agnostic wife; it keeps his mind alive. Well, we’ll both think it over today and discuss it again tomorrow morning. I mean tomorrow. My mind is made up. As for that two pounds a week, could you go on taking it if Amelia died? Tomorrow at ten o’clock!”

“You were a long time, Amelia,” said Miss Pendleham.

“I was as quick as I could be, Miss Pendleham, but my heart was palpitating so.”

“Nonsense! You’re perfectly well. Don’t imagine things, Amelia!”

Miss Pendleham was one of those apparently timeless spinsters, so leisurely does the process of decay take its way with them. She was very tall and cylindrical in shape, an almost epicene, sexless body. She was invariably dressed in an iridescent grey garment of antique cut and rustling train. About her face, her nose in particular, the Rector had made one of his rare jests, by adapting to it a Max Beerbohm pleasantry, “Hints of the Iron Duke at most angles”; and, indeed, that ungainly, craggy feature dominated the rest. Her mouth was small, thin-lipped, dry. Her eyes were quite round—monkey’s eyes—and an odd brimstone-yellow, a family stigma. Her hair was a dense grey mass. The face was a mask, as though modelled in wax from a corpse, quite colourless. Her age might have been anything from fifty-five to seventy.

Amelia was about forty-eight. Once upon a time she might have been a bonnie girl, for her features were well enough, but it required a sympathetic and perceptive eye so to scan and reconstruct the past. There are parasites which slowly devour and drain their hosts from within, till nothing is left but a thin, transparent envelope. A puff of wind and it disintegrates. Amelia might have been long entertaining some such greedy guest. Pounds under weight, gaunt and stooping, listless and lifeless of hair and eye, like a prisoner at long last delivered from a dungeon where she had lain neglected and forgotten. Death had his hand on her shoulder and was fast tightening his grip, but to give her her due it had taken nine hard years to bring her to this pass.

“I’ll go and cook the luncheon,” she said.

“Yes; what is there?”

“Chops.”

“I’ll have three. Are you hungry?”

“No, Miss Pendleham.”

“Then cook four, and let mine be red right through.”

Carthwaite Place rose on the northern slopes above Lake Windermere. It was unmistakably Elizabethan: a huge sombre pile of brick with a multitude of mullioned, transomed windows and a flat roof. It had thirty-five bedrooms and one bathroom. It required many thousands spent on it to make it habitable, but that money would never be found; and it was very slowly breaking up and passing. The grounds surrounding it had gone back to a wild, disorderly nature. Miss Pendleham never left it, save to attend Matins on Sunday morning. Its one trace of modernity was a telephone, used for ordering her frugal wants from the market town six miles away.

Amelia dragged herself to the great stone vaulted kitchen and raked up the fire. She had begun to tremble again, and never did she glance behind her. Once she paused as though listening, her face revealing the greatest anxiety. Several times her mouth moved as though she were muttering something, but no sound came.

Presently she finished cooking and took the results to the dining-room where Miss Pendleham was already seated. The meal was eaten in dead silence and very quickly, for Miss Pendleham always attacked her food like a starving panther. On the wall facing Amelia was a tattered seventeenth century tapestry. It depicted a company of knights and ladies riding in pairs along a sinister serpentine path. On the left of the path were three rotting corpses in open coffins. The air above them was thronged with vile flying things. Amelia’s eyes always flickered around the room trying not to see it. Miss Pendleham watched her covertly. At the end of the meal she said what she always said, “Wash up quickly and come and read to me.”

“Very good, Miss Pendleham.”

When she got back to the drawing-room, Miss Pendleham handed her a book. It was a translation of the Abbe Boissard’s life of Gilles de Rais, realistically illustrated. Amelia had already read it out endless times before. She read well, though the details of that abattoir ritual came oddly from her precise and virginal voice.

Presently Miss Pendleham stopped her. “Something very similar,” she said in her high, metallic tone, “is known to have been done here by an ancestor of my own. He killed by torture a number of children, chiefly young girls, and employed their bodies for some such curious ceremonies. It is owing to that, possibly, that the house has acquired its quite false repute of being a haunted place. Perhaps I have told you that before?”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham,” replied Amelia mechanically.

“I’m going to doze now. Wake me at five with the tea. Sit here till it is time to prepare it.”

This was an ordeal Amelia detested, but had long accepted as part of her daily calvary. Was Miss Pendleham asleep, or was she slyly watching her? Were her eyes quite closed?

It was a soaking afternoon, the small dense mountain rain streaming down the windows. There was just that steady rain-purr and the slow beat of the grandfather’s clock to break the silence. Miss Pendleham never stirred nor did her breathing change. Slowly the light faded, and Amelia began to ache with stiffness and immobility. Suddenly there came from somewhere in the house a thin high cry of pain. Amelia’s eyes went wild and she put her hand to her throat. Miss Pendleham opened her eyes wide and slowly leaned forward, staring at her. “What’s the matter, Amelia?” she said slowly.

“Nothing, Miss Pendleham,” gulped Amelia, “I’ll go and get the tea.”

Miss Pendleham glanced after her bowed back. For a moment the mask was raised and she smiled. But the smile merely contorted the lower part of her face, her yellow eyes took no share in it. There came again that remote, agonizing wail. The half-smile vanished, the yellow eyes flickered, the mask came down again.

After tea she played Patience and Amelia was left to her own devices till it was time to cook the supper. Anyone watching Miss Pendleham playing Patience, which is a stark test of virtue, would have decided, that if he ever did business with her, he’d have kept a sharp lawyer at his elbow, for she always cheated when necessary, but never more than necessary.

Anyone who had watched Amelia presently preparing the supper by the light of two candles would have gleaned some understanding of the phrase “mental torture”. Those candles threw strange shadows on the bare walls and arched roof. That observer might have caught himself imitating Amelia, glancing up fearfully and furtively at those crowding, multi-formed shades, and learned her trick of flinching when she did so. Was that a small body lying prone and a tall figure with its hands to the small one’s throat? And did that figure move? Just the flicker of the candle, of course. And yet that observer might well have wished himself away, but would he have had the heart to leave Amelia down there alone?

Supper was again a quite silent meal. Miss Pendleham scraped her well-piled plates tiger-clean. Amelia left half her sparse portions.

After supper Miss Pendleham said, “Fetch my wrap from my bedroom, Amelia; I forgot to bring it down.” She said that almost every evening, perhaps because she knew how Amelia dreaded going up those dark stairs, ever since she had that fright four years ago.

Amelia fetched it, washed up, and returned again to the drawing-room. “Now,” said Miss Pendleham, “you can read to me for an hour. Get those stories by James.”

“Well, Claud,” said Clara next morning, “have you been thinking it over?”

“Yes, my dear, but I can’t see my way clear, I’m afraid. We say she tortures these women. But how does she torture them? She gives them board and lodging, pays them something, I suppose, a pittance, no doubt, but something. She is superficially kind to them. She does not—could not—legally compel them to stay. Who would call that torture, save ourselves?”

“And Mr. Miles!”

“And Mr. Miles, if you like. Suppose I did tackle her. If she didn’t at once show me the door, she’d probably call in Amelia and ask her if she had anything to complain about. ‘No, Miss Pendleham,’ she’d certainly reply; and what sort of fool should I look!”

Mrs. Redvale, like most women in the grip of logic, raised her voice. “You’ve got to be firm, Claud, and not be fooled by that sort of thing. You must take the offensive. She can neither sack you nor eat you. Tell her straight that you are certain Amelia is dying and must have immediate attention. Remind her three of her companions have already died in the house, and, if there’s a fourth, some very awkward questions are bound to be asked. There is Amelia again! I’ll get her in.”

She hurried from the room and out into the street.

“How are you, Miss Lornon?” she asked kindly.

“All right, thank you, Mrs. Redvale.”

“You don’t look it! Come in a moment.”

“Oh, I can’t! Miss Pendleham told me to hurry back with the stamps.”

“Never mind; it’s only for a minute.”

Amelia hesitated and then reluctantly followed her in.

The Rector scanned her closely as he greeted her.

Mrs. Redvale now assumed her most forcible manner.

“Miss Lornon, you’re in a very bad state, aren’t you? Don’t be afraid to tell me; it will go no further.”

Amelia began to cry in the most passive, hopeless way. “I suppose so,” she murmured.

“That house is killing you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I can stand it, Mrs. Redvale.”

“No, you can’t! Have a good cry. You’ve got to get away from it!”

“I can’t! Miss Pendleham would never let me go.”

“She’ll have to! Look here, Amelia—I’m going to call you that—we’re determined to help you. In the meantime, remember nothing there can hurt you. They can frighten, they can’t hurt.”

“They can!” she sobbed. “They keep me awake nearly all night. In the summer it’s not so bad, because they go away at dawn, but in the long nights it’s terrible. I must go now.”

“You won’t have to stand it much longer! Bear up until we can do something.”

“There’s nothing to be done, thank you kindly, Mrs. Redvale. Oh, I mustn’t say any more. Miss Pendleham would be so cross if she knew I was talking like this!”

“Nonsense! Your health comes before everything!”

But Amelia had hurried from the room.

“You see!” exclaimed Clara. “I could strangle that she-devil with my bare hands!”

“There’s one thing I’ve never been sure about,” said the Rector, “does Miss Pendleham realise there’s something the matter with the house? If not, the force of the charge against her is greatly weakened.”

“Of course she does!”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I watched her when we heard that ghastly cry. She heard it, too, her demeanour showed it. But it doesn’t worry her, she welcomes it as an instrument of that torture. She makes Amelia think, ‘I must be going mad if I see and hear things that aren’t there.’ Can’t you see what I mean? Her mind is diseased like that of her foul forbears. Those things are echoes of evil and she is utterly evil too. Did the ‘first murderer’ frighten the other two? Of course not!”

“Clara, that is a fearful thing to say!”

“You’ve just seen that wretched woman, haven’t you! Look here, Claud, if you don’t do something about it I’ll lose all respect for you! This is the test of your Christianity and courage. I’m an infidel, but I’d do it myself if I thought she’d take any notice of me, but she wouldn’t for she hates and despises all women. But you are her spiritual adviser.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic, my dear.”

“There’s need to be something to goad you to action! Will you, Claud?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” sighed the Rector, “but I wish I could consult the Bishop first.”

“You’d get nothing but vague boomings. Is your courage at the sticking-point?”

“Yes, I’ll do it.”

“Then go straight to the phone!”

He left the room and returned after a few moments. “She will see me at half-past nine tonight,” he said.

“Did you tell her what you wanted to see her about?”

“I just said something of importance.”

“And you were under-stating—it’s a matter of life and death, and we both know it!”

“Have you been crying, Amelia?”

“Oh no, Miss Pendleham, the cold wind caught my eyes.”

“It doesn’t seem cold to me. Give me the book of stamps and get luncheon ready.”

During the meal Miss Pendleham said, “You see that tapestry, Amelia?”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham.”

“You’re not looking at it!”

Amelia glanced flinchingly up. She noticed that as each cavalier and his paramour reached the three open coffins, their smiles and lascivious glances changed to looks of loathing and horror. Because, she thought, they are young and happy and haven’t learned to long for rest.

“It’s called The Triumph of Death,” said Miss Pendleham.

“Yes, so you’ve told me.”

“That reminds me of something. Have you finished?”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham.”

Miss Pendleham led the way into the drawing-room. “Today,” she said, “is the anniversary of the death of Miss Davis. She was my companion before you came. She was a foolish, fanciful girl in some ways. Have I told you about her before?”

“Only a little, Miss Pendleham.”

“Yes, she was fanciful. She used to fancy she heard and saw strange things in the house and that shows her mind was tainted, does it not?”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham.”

“I mean, if the house were haunted, we should both of us see and hear strange things, should we not?”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham.”

“Which we never do?”

“No, Miss Pendleham.”

“Of course not. Well, I should, perhaps, have dismissed Miss Davis earlier but I did not like to. Have I told you how she died?”

“No, Miss Pendleham.”

“I thought not. I had noticed she was getting thinner, and stranger in her manner, and she told me her sleep was disordered. I should have been warned when she came running to my room one day saying she had seen a child butchered in the kitchen—and she had other hallucinations which revealed her mind was in an abnormal state. One evening I sent her up to fetch my wrap, just as I sometimes send you, and, as she did not reappear, I went in search of her. I found her lying dead in the powder-closet of my room. The doctor said she had died of a heart-attack and asked me if she could have had a fright of some kind. I said not to my knowledge. I think she must have supposed she had seen something displeasing. Look behind you, Amelia!”

Amelia started from her chair with a cry.

“What is the matter with you!” said Miss Pendleham severely. “I merely wanted to draw your attention to the fact that the antimacassar was slipping from your chair. I hope your nerves are not giving way. Didn’t you imagine you had a fright of some kind a month ago?”

“It was nothing, Miss Pendleham.”

“You screamed loudly enough. Bear Miss Davis in mind. Becoming fanciful is often the first symptom of brain disease, so the doctor told me; hearing things, seeing things when there is nothing to see or hear. Now you can read to me.”

And this Amelia did; Miss Pendleham presently telling her to stop and seeming to doze off, while the windows rattled disconcertingly and, as the light faded and the fire shook out its last flame and sank to its death-glow, something white seemed to dart across the Musicians’ Gallery and something follow it as though in pursuit, and there came that thin wail of pain. Amelia went rigid with terror.

“What’s the matter, Amelia?” said Miss Pendleham, leaning forward in her chair.

“Nothing, Miss Pendleham. I’ll make up the fire and then get tea.”

While she was cooking the dinner that night she was thinking over what Miss Pendleham had said about Miss Davis. She had died of what was killing her, of course. She would die soon, now, very soon. She knew it, and then Miss Pendleham would get someone else, and one day that someone would die, too, for the same reason—unless—. Suddenly she paused in her work. What was that! Someone was crying in the servants’ hall! That was something she’d never heard before. Her heart hammered in her throat, stopped horribly long, then raced away again. A piercing pain ran through her. Who was that crying! She must be brave. It might be someone real and not one of Them! She took a candle and tiptoed along the passage of the hall, a bare, desolate place reeking of dirt and vermin, which Amelia dreaded and seldom entered. There was no one there, but the sound of sobbing was louder. “Oh, God,” moaned a voice, “I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!” Then came a laugh, a sly sinister chuckle and the wailing voice rose to a scream. “Oh, God, I cannot bear it!”

As Amelia went back to the kitchen her face twitched violently and uncontrollably. Was that real or not? Was it just a sound in her head as Miss Pendleham said it must be; just a fancy? If so, she was going mad like Miss Davis. What happened to mad people in that Other World? Were they mad there, too, and forever? That didn’t bear thinking about. She must die before that happened. She was dying; she knew that by the terrible pains in her heart. What would happen when she was dead? Miss Davis had died; she’d just heard her crying. No, that was just a sound in her head. Her face contorted again in the fearful effort to concentrate, to get it straight and clear in her mind. Well, she would die, like Miss Davis, and then Miss Pendleham would get someone else to look after her and it would all happen again with the new girl. No, it mustn’t. It would not be right. Miss Pendleham was very kind, but she didn’t understand about the house. It was all very curious and difficult, but it must not happen again. There was Miss Davis still crying, still crying in her head. But it would happen again unless—unless she was brave. If Miss Pendleham realised what sort of things happened to Miss Davis and her and what they saw and heard, she wouldn’t let it happen, of course, but she didn’t and so—. Did she hate Miss Pendleham? Of course not; why should she? Again St. Vitus racked her face. But it wouldn’t happen again. There was the man and the little girl! She flung up her hands to her ears. A red veil was drawn down before her eyes. She shook her hands from the wrist and stretched and curved her fingers. The expression on her face became at once hard and vacant, like that of a beast at bay. She retained that curious inhuman expression, and Miss Pendleham noticed it when she brought up the meal. It disturbed her and her own eyes went weazel-hard. Presently she said, “Eat your dinner, Amelia; what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, Miss Pendleham. I’m not very hungry.”

“Eat your food! By the way, you haven’t been talking to the Rector or his wife, have you?”

“I just said good morning to Mrs. Redvale.”

“Are you sure that was all?”

“Yes, Miss Pendleham.”

And then there was silence for a time till Miss Pendleham rose and remarked, “You can read to me for a while,” and Amelia read out a tale about some bedclothes forming into a figure and frightening an old man in the other bed.

“What did you think of that, Amelia?” asked Miss Pendleham.

“Very nice, Miss Pendleham.”

“Nice! I don’t believe you are paying attention. You read very badly again!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Pendleham. The old man was mad, wasn’t he, Miss Pendleham? Like Miss Davis and me?”

Miss Pendleham stared at her. “Get my wrap!” she said brutally.

Amelia got up slowly and went through the door leading to the stairs. As she started to climb them she crossed herself and stretched and curved her fingers. A fearful twitch convulsed her face.

Miss Pendleham went to the front door, opened it and left it ajar and went back to the drawing-room. Then, as the minutes passed, she cocked her head as though listening. There came that high torture-wail, and she straightened her head abruptly. The clock ticked, the windows throbbed and hammered in the gale. Presently she got up and went to the foot of the stairs. “Amelia!” she called, her voice cracking oddly. There was no reply. She smiled and ran her thick tongue along her lips. She went up a few stairs and called again; then fetched a lighted candle from the drawing-room and ascended to the first landing. “Amelia!” she called. A sudden fierce gust of wind spurted down the passage and blew out the candle, leaving her in pitch darkness. She began to grope her way down the corridor, her fingers sliding along the wall. They came to a gap and she turned in to the left, moving forward till her thighs met a bed. “Amelia!” she called, and the echo was hurled hard back at her. She moved across the room, her hands groping out before her, till they found another gap—the powder-closet. This was crammed with her ancient and discarded clothes and stank of stale scent, sweat and decay. She touched a hanging frock and then another, her hands moving along. And then her right hand met something and she drew in her breath with a quickness. The next second she was twisting and writhing and from her lips came a choked scream. As she was ruthlessly drawn in among the reeking stuffs, swinging wildly on their hooks, she struck out blindly with her clenched fists again and again. At last she leaned forward, buckling at the knees, her arms fell quivering to her sides, there was a long vile rattle from her throat, and she was still.

“It’s a quarter past nine;” said Clara, “time you were off. You’d better have a drink before you go; it will help you to be firm, and you’ve got to be very firm.” She poured out a stiff whiskey which the Rector gulped down. Then he picked up his hat and coat and set out.

It had stopped raining, but it was still blowing a full gale and he had to fight his way against it. So soon as he entered the drive through the battered gates screeching on their hinges, he felt his nerves a-tingle. “As one who on a lonely road doth walk in fear and dread.” The old lines leaped to his memory. He glanced fearfully up at the over-hanging boughs. Was that a footstep close behind him? He broke into a run. To his surprise he found the front door half-open and went in. He saw a light in the drawing-room, entered and found it empty. He waited a few moments and then called out timorously, “I’m here, Miss Pendleham!” Before the echo of his voice died away there came a long choked scream. “Good God, what was that!” he muttered, and sweat broke out on him. “It came from above. I must go up!”

He glanced distractedly around, picked up a candle-stick, lit the candle, and opened the door to the stairs with a quivering hand. As he hurried up the first flight, it seemed to him there was something astir in the house and that the shadows on the wall came from a company of persons following him up, and that others were awaiting him on the landing. He trembled and his breath came fast.

“Miss Pendleham!” he quavered. No sound. He lurched down the corridor till he came to an open door, through which he passed into a huge room. He raised the candle-stick and peered fearfully about him. Ah, there was another door—open—and there was Miss Pendleham.

“Here I am, Miss Pendleham!” he said. What was she doing? He could only see her body from the waist down, the rest was buried in some clothes. He tiptoed into the closet and gingerly pulled the clothes aside. And then he sprang back with a clipped cry, for he was gazing into the battered, dead face of Amelia Lornon. She was leaning back against the wall, and she had drawn Miss Pendleham’s head down on her breast. Her hands clutched her neck so fiercely and the nails were driven in so deep, that the blood was seeping down over her lace collar. The last shred of self-control left him. The candle-stick fell from his hand, and he ran blunderingly from the room and down the stairs. The air seemed full of screams and laughter, something death-cold was pressed against his face, leaping figures ran beside him, till at last he staggered whimpering out into the night.