He undid the wrapper, and cautiously tilted a few grains of the white
powder on to a piece of paper, and peered curiously at it. "Yes," he said, "it is like the sulphate of quinine, as you say; it is
flaky. But smell it." He held the bottle to me, and I bent over it. It was a strange sickly
smell, vaporous and overpowering, like some strong anæsthetic. "I shall have it analyzed," said Haberden. "I have a friend who has
devoted his whole life to chemistry as a science. Then we shall have
something to go upon. No, no, say no more about that other matter; I
cannot listen to that, and take my advice and think no more about it
yourself." That evening my brother did not go out as usual after dinner. "I have had my fling," he said with a queer laugh; "and I must go back
to my old ways. A little law will be quite a relaxation after so sharp a
dose of pleasure," and he grinned to himself, and soon after went up to
his room. His hand was still all bandaged. Dr. Haberden called a few days later. "I have no special news to give you," he said. "Chambers is out of town,
so I know no more about that stuff than you do. But I should like to see
Mr. Leicester if he is in." "He is in his room," I said; "I will tell him you are here." "No, no, I will go up to him; we will have a little quiet talk together. I dare say that we have made a good deal of fuss about very little; for,
after all, whatever the white powder may be, it seems to have done him
good." The doctor went upstairs, and standing in the hall I heard his knock,
and the opening and shutting of the door; and then I waited in the
silent house for an hour, and the stillness grew more and more intense
as the hands of the clock crept round. Then there sounded from above the
noise of a door shut sharply, and the doctor was coming down the stairs. His 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, and 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, and 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 stretched out a hand blindly through 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 had looked at me. Suddenly I remembered; as I lifted my
face the blind was being drawn back, and I had had an instant's glance
of the thing that was moving it, and in my recollection I knew that a
hideous image was engraved forever on my brain. It was not a hand: there
were no fingers that held the blind, but a black stump pushed it aside;
the mouldering outline and the clumsy movement as of a beast's paw had
glowed into my senses before the darkling waves of terror had
overwhelmed me as I went down quick into the pit. My mind was aghast at
the thought of this, and of the awful presence that dwelt with my
brother in his room; I went to his door and cried to him again, but no
answer came. That night one of the servants came up to me and told me in
a whisper that for three days food had been regularly placed at the door
and left untouched; the maid had knocked, but had received no answer;
she had heard the noise of shuffling feet that I had noticed.