"You, damn you--you're a fine one to talk defeat and moderation to me! Who started all this, anyway? Did _I_ have any idea of your cursed
devil-gods and elder world? Did _I_ ever in my life think of your
damned spaces beyond the stars and your crawling chaos Nyarlathotep? I was a normal scientific man, confound you, till I was fool enough
to drag you out of the vaults with your devilish Atlantean secrets. You egged me on, and now you want to cut me off! You loaf around doing
nothing and telling me to go slow when you might just as well as not be
going out and getting material. You know damn well that I don't know
how to go about such things, whereas you must have been an old hand at
it before the earth was made. It's like you, you damned walking corpse,
to start something you won't or can't finish!" Surama's evil chuckle came. "You're insane, Clarendon. That's the only reason I let you rave on
when I could send you to hell in three minutes. Enough is enough, and
you've certainly had enough material for any novice at your stage. You've had all I'm going to get you, anyhow! You're only a maniac on
the subject now--what a cheap, crazy thing to sacrifice even your poor
sister's pet dog, when you could have spared him as well as not! You
can't look at any living thing now without wanting to jab that gold
syringe into it. No--Dick had to go where the Mexican boy went--where
Tsanpo and the other seven went--where all the animals went! What a
pupil! You're no fun any more--you've lost your nerve. You set out to
control things, and they're controlling you. I'm about done with you,
Clarendon. I thought you had the stuff in you, but you haven't. It's
about time I tried somebody else. I'm afraid you'll have to go!" In the doctor's shouted reply there was both fear and frenzy. "Be careful, you ----! There are powers against your powers--I didn't
go to China for nothing, and there are things in Alhazred's _Azif_
which weren't known in Atlantis! We've both meddled in dangerous
things, but you needn't think you know all my resources. How about the
Nemesis of Flame? I talked in Yemen with an old man who had come back
alive from the Crimson Desert--he had seen Irem, the City of Pillars,
and had worshiped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb--Ia! Shub-Niggurath!" Through Clarendon's shrieking falsetto cut the deep chuckle of the
clinic-man. "Shut up, you fool! Do you suppose your grotesque nonsense has any
weight with me? Words and formulæ--words and formulæ--what do they all
mean to one who has the substance behind them? We're in a material
sphere now, and subject to material laws. You have your fever; I have
my revolver. You'll get no specimens, and I'll get no fever so long as
I have you in front of me with this gun between!" That was all Georgina could hear. She felt her senses reeling, and
staggered out of the vestibule for a saving breath of the lowering
outside air. She saw that the crisis had come at last, and that help
must now arrive quickly if her brother was to be saved from unknown
gulfs of madness and mystery. Summoning up all her reserve energy, she
managed to reach the house and get to the library, where she scrawled a
hasty note for Margarita to take to James Dalton. *       *       *       *       *

When the old woman had gone, Georgina had just strength enough to cross
to the lounge and sink weakly down into a sort of semi-stupor. There
she lay for what seemed like years, conscious only of the fantastic
creeping up of the twilight from the lower corners of the great, dismal
room, and plagued by a thousand shadowy shapes of terror which filed
with fantasmal, half-limned pageantry through her tortured and stifled
brain. Dusk deepened into darkness, and still the spell held. Then a
firm tread sounded in the hall, and she heard someone enter the room
and fumble at the match-safe. Her heart almost stopped beating as the
gas-jets of the chandelier flared up one by one, but then she saw that
the arrival was her brother. Relieved to the bottom of her heart that
he was still alive, she gave vent to an involuntary sigh, profound,
long-drawn, and tremulous, and lapsed at last into kindly oblivion. At the sound of that sigh Clarendon turned in alarm toward the lounge,
and was inexpressibly shocked to see the pale and unconscious form of
his sister there. Her face had a deathlike quality that frightened his
inmost spirit, and he flung himself on his knees by her side, awake to
a realization of what her passing away would mean to him. Long unused
to private practise amidst his ceaseless quest for truth, he had lost
the physician's instinct of first aid, and could only call out her name
and chafe her wrists mechanically as fear and grief possessed him. Then
he thought of water, and ran to the dining-room for a carafe. Stumbling
about in a darkness which seemed to harbor vague terrors, he was some
time in finding what he sought; but at last he clutched it in shaking
hand and hastened back to dash the cold fluid in Georgina's face. The
method was crude but effective. She stirred, sighed a second time, and
finally opened her eyes. "You are alive!" he cried, and put his cheek to hers as she stroked
his head maternally. She was almost glad she had fainted, for the
circumstance seemed to have dispelled the strange Alfred and brought
her own brother back to her. She sat up slowly and tried to reassure
him. "I'm all right, Al. Just give me a glass of water. It's a sin to waste
it this way--to say nothing of spoiling my waist! Is that the way to
behave every time your sister drops off for a nap? You needn't think
I'm going to be sick, for I haven't time for such nonsense!" Alfred's eyes showed that her cool, common-sense speech had had its
effect. His brotherly panic dissolved in an instant, and instead
there came into his face a vague, calculating expression, as if
some marvelous possibility had just dawned upon him. As she watched
the subtle waves of cunning and appraisal pass fleetingly over
his countenance she became less and less certain that her mode of
reassurance had been a wise one, and before he spoke she found herself
shivering at something she could not define. A keen medical instinct
almost told her that his moment of sanity had passed, and that he was
now once more the unrestrained fanatic for scientific research. There
was something morbid in the quick narrowing of his eyes at her casual
mention of good health. What was he thinking? To what unnatural extreme
was his passion for experiment about to be pushed? Wherein lay the
special significance of her pure blood and absolutely flawless organic
state? None of these misgivings, however, troubled Georgina for more
than a second, and she was quite natural and unsuspicious as she felt
her brother's steady fingers at her pulse. "You're a bit feverish, Georgie," he said in a precise, elaborately
restrained voice as he looked professionally into her eyes. "Why, nonsense, I'm all right," she replied.