Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/143

Rh would hear it, down in the well of the sleeping house, even on the first flight of stairs. It mounted, mounted, stealthy, cautious, coming nearer and nearer, but always at the same steady pace. It never hastened. As it approached, rising through the stillness of the night, my heart would begin to beat; I dreaded the moment when our landing would be reached, still more the actual opening of our door. I listened, smothering my breath, trying to lessen the loud thumping against my ribs. The steps might not be his, after all; it might be someone else; that stealthy tread might pass my door without opening it and go upstairs. Then, when at last the handle rattled faintly, the door opened, and I saw him slowly enter, carrying his boots in his hand, my first instinct always was to--scream. Then he would smile, the eye-glass would drop from his eye, he would begin his explanations and excuses, and my dread soon evaporated in the friendliest of intimate talk.

So well, at last, did I learn to recognize his approach, that I knew the moment he opened the front door three flights below. The sound of the handle with its clink of metal, the dull thud as the big thing closed--I was never once mistaken. In my fitful snatches of sleep these sounds stole in, shaping my dreams, determining both cause and climax of incessant nightmares which, drawing upon present things and recent memories, and invariably including the personality of Boyde, made those waiting hours a recurrent horror. I would fight in vain to keep awake. Only when he was safely asleep at my side did the nightmares cease.

I had once seen Dixon, a Toronto photographer, walk across the Niagara river, just below the Falls; he used Blondin's old tight-rope; he lay down on his back half way over, turned round, knelt, hovered on one foot, using an immense balancing pole. Thousands watched him from both shores on a day of baking sunshine; his background was the massive main waterfall, slowly rolling down and over; below him swirled and boiled the awful rapids. Dixon now came walking, walking in my Rh