The House of the Vampire(22)

And, oh, the agony of it all! A human mind is not a thing of stone, but alive, horribly alive to pain. What was it those fingers sought, what mysterious treasures, what jewels hidden in the under-layer of his consciousness? His brain was like a human gold-mine, quaking under the blow of the pick and the tread of the miner. The miner! Ah, the miner! Ceaselessly, thoroughly, relentlessly, he opened vein after vein and wrested untold riches from the quivering ground; but each vein was a live vein and each nugget of gold a thought!

No wonder the boy was a nervous wreck. Whenever a tremulous nascent idea was formulating itself, the dream-hand clutched it and took it away, brutally severing the fine threads that bind thought to thought. And when the morning came, how his head ached! It was not an acute pain, but dull, heavy, incessant.

These sensations, Ernest frequently told himself, were morbid fancies. But then, the monomaniac who imagines that his arms have been mangled or cut from his body, might as well be without arms. Mind can annihilate obstacles. It can also create them. Psychology was no unfamiliar ground to Ernest, and it was not difficult for him to seek in some casual suggestion an explanation for his delusion, the fixed notion that haunted him day and night. But he also realized that to explain a phenomenon is not to explain it away. The man who analyses his emotions cannot wholly escape them, and the shadow of fear—primal, inexplicable fear—may darken at moments of weakness the life of the subtlest psychologist and the clearest thinker.

He had never spoken to Reginald of his terrible nightmares. Coming on the heel of the fancy that he, Ernest, had written "The Princess With the Yellow Veil," a fancy that, by the way, had again possessed him of late, this new delusion would certainly arouse suspicion as to his sanity in Reginald's mind. He would probably send him to a sanitarium; he certainly would not keep him in the house. Beneficence itself in all other things, his host was not to be trifled with in any matter that interfered with his work. He would act swiftly and without mercy.

For the first time in many days Ernest thought of Abel Felton. Poor boy! What had become of him after he had been turned from the house? He would not wait for any one to tell him to pack his bundle. But then, that was impossible; Reginald was fond of him.

Suddenly Ernest's meditations were interrupted by a noise at the outer door. A key was turned in the lock. It must be he—but why so soon? What could have brought him back at this hour? He opened the door and went out into the hall to see what had happened. The figure that he beheld was certainly not the person expected, but a woman, from whose shoulders a theatre-cloak fell in graceful folds,—probably a visitor for Reginald. Ernest was about to withdraw discreetly, when the electric light that was burning in the hallway fell upon her face and illumined it.

Then indeed surprise overcame him. "Ethel," he cried, "is it you?"









XXIII


Ernest conducted Ethel Brandenbourg to his room and helped her to remove her cloak.

While he was placing the garment upon the back of a chair, she slipped a little key into her hand-bag. He looked at her with a question in his eyes.

"Yes," she replied, "I kept the key; but I had not dreamed that I would ever again cross this threshold."

Meanwhile it had grown quite dark. The reflection of the street lanterns without dimly lit the room, and through the twilight fantastic shadows seemed to dance.

The perfume of her hair pervaded the room and filled the boy's heart with romance. Tenderness long suppressed called with a thousand voices. The hour, the strangeness and unexpectedness of her visit, perhaps even a boy's pardonable vanity, roused passion from its slumbers and once again wrought in Ernest's soul the miracle of love. His arm encircled her neck and his lips stammered blind, sweet, crazy and caressing things.

"Turn on the light," she pleaded.

"You were not always so cruel."

"No matter, I have not come to speak of love."

"Why, then, have you come?"

Ernest felt a little awkward, disappointed, as he uttered these words.

What could have induced her to come to his rooms? He loosened his hold on her and did as she asked.

How pale she looked in the light, how beautiful! Surely, she had sorrowed for him; but why had she not answered his letter? Yes, why?

"Your letter?" She smiled a little sadly. "Surely you did not expect me to answer that?"

"Why not?" He had again approached her and his lips were close to hers. "Why not? I have yearned for you. I love you."

His breath intoxicated her; it was like a subtle perfume. Still she did not yield.

"You love me now—you did not love me then. The music of your words was cold—machine-made, strained and superficial. I shall not answer, I told myself: in his heart he has forgotten you. I did not then realise that a dangerous force had possessed your life and crushed in your mind every image but its own."