Bela sees to that."
Bela!
He may have observed the pallor which blanched her small, tense
features as this name fell so naturally from his lips, or some
instinct of his own may have led him to suspect tragedy where all
was so abnormally still, for, as she watched, she saw his eyes,
fixed up to now upon her face, leave it and pass furtively and
with many hesitations from object to object, towards that spot
behind him, where lay the source of her great terror, if not of
his. So lingeringly and with such dread was this done, that she
could barely hold back her weak woman's scream in the intensity of
her suspense. She knew just where his glances fell without
following them with her own. She saw them pass the door where so
many faces yet peered in (he saw them not), and creep along the
wall beyond, inch by inch, breathlessly and with dread, till
finally, with fatal precision, they reached the point where the
screen had stood, and not finding it, flew in open terror to the
door it was set there to conceal--when that something else,
huddled in oozing blood, on the floor beneath, drew them unto
itself with the irresistibleness of grim reality, and he forgot
all else in the horror of a sight for which his fears, however
great, had failed to prepare him.
Dead! BELA! Dead! and lying in his blood! The rest may have been
no dream, but this was surely one, or his eyes, used to inner
visions, were playing him false.
Grasping the table at his side to steady his failing limbs, he
pulled himself along by its curving edge till he came almost
abreast of the helpless figure which for so many years had been
the embodiment of faithful and unwearied service.
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