In
the overstrain of his nervous system the illusion was powerful. He
thought he heard her voice. The pistol slipped from his fingers, and he
fell back on the pillow with a sigh. The will beyond his will bound his
footsteps.
Who can tell? The grim, malign experience of Fleda in her bedroom with
the Thing she thought was from beyond the bounds of her own life; the
voice that spoke to Ingolby, and the breath that swept over his cheek
were, perhaps, as real in a sense as would have been the corporeal
presence of Jethro Fawe in one case and of Fleda Druse in the other. It
may be that in very truth Fleda Druse's spirit with its poignant
solicitude controlled his will as he "rose up to depart." But if it was
only an illusion, it was not less a miracle. Some power of suggestion
bound his fleeing footsteps, drew him back from the Brink.
He slept. Once the nurse came and looked at him and returned to the other
room; and twice Jim stole in silently for a moment and retired again to
his own chamber. The stars shone in at the doors that opened out from the
quiet room into the night, the watch beside the bed ticked on, the
fox-terrier which always slept on a mat at the foot of the bed sighed in
content, while his master breathed heavily in a sleep full of dreams that
hurried past like phantasmagoria--of a hundred things that had been in
his life, and that had never been; of people he had known, distorted,
ridiculous and tremendous.
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