But in the
brilliant square of the door he saw the girl--the woman he had longed to
see once more as if enthroned, with her hands on the arms of the chair.
She was in black; her face was white, her head dreamily inclined on her
breast. He saw her only as low as her knees. He saw her--there, in the
room, alive with a sombre reality. It was no mocking vision. She was not
in the forest--but there! She sat there in the chair, seemingly without
strength, yet without fear, tenderly stooping.
"Can you understand their power?" whispered the hot breath of Mr. Jones
into his ear. "Can there be a more disgusting spectacle? It's enough to
make the earth detestable. She seems to have found her affinity. Move
on closer. If I have to shoot you in the end, then perhaps you will die
cured."
Heyst obeyed the pushing pressure of a revolver barrel between his
shoulders. He felt it distinctly, but he did not feel the ground under
his feet. They found the steps, without his being aware that he was
ascending them--slowly, one by one. Doubt entered into him--a doubt of
a new kind, formless, hideous. It seemed to spread itself all over him,
enter his limbs, and lodge in his entrails. He stopped suddenly, with
a thought that he who experienced such a feeling had no business to
live--or perhaps was no longer living.
Everything--the bungalow, the forest, the open ground--trembled
incessantly, the earth, the sky itself, shivered all the time, and the
only thing immovable in the shuddering universe was the interior of the
lighted room and the woman in black sitting in the light of the eight
candle-flames.
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