Page:Henry Northcote (IA henrynorthcote00snairich).pdf/186

 Suddenly Northcote heard Mr. Whitcomb call his name.

"Come here, Mr. Northcote; I want to introduce you."

In a hazy, stupefied manner the young man obeyed.

"Mrs. Harrison," said the solicitor, "allow me to present my friend Mr. Northcote. I feel sure you will find a friend in him too."

The advocate grew aware that a weak, nerveless hand was resting in his, but his eyes were still riveted on the face of the ghoul.

"Say something, you fool, and play up a bit," said the solicitor's calm voice in his ear.

"Er—a nice day, Mrs. Harrison," said the young man, without knowing a word he was uttering.

"Yes," said a hesitating voice, which by no possibility could have proceeded from the tightly closed lips of the creature whom his gaze was devouring.

The words broke the illusion at a blow. The brutalized countenance under whose dominion he had fallen was that of the female warder. The person with whom the solicitor had been conversing with such cheerful volubility, to whom he was now himself speaking, was the poisoner, the cold-blooded denizen of the curb and the gutter. He drew his hand away quickly, with an involuntary emotion, from those hot, flabby, and damp fingers that he still detained.

"I know, I know," the woman seemed to breathe, as though she were interpreting an unspoken thought.