Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/89

Rh She stole back on tiptoe to her. The old woman was dreaming, and talking in her sleep. She had her hands out of bed together, and parted them and waved them. "No, Mehalah, no! Not George! not George! "She gave emphasis with her hand, then suddenly grasped her daughter's wrist, "But Elijah!" Next moment her grasp relaxed, and she slept calmly, apparently dreamlessly again. Mehalah went back. It was strange. No sooner was she in her place by the hearth again than the same distress came over her. It was as though a black cloud had swept over her sky and blotted out every light, so that neither sun, nor moon, nor star appeared, as though she were left drifting without a rudder and without a compass in an unknown sea, under murky night with only the phosphorescent flash of the waves about, not illumining the way but intensifying its horror. It was as though she found herself suddenly in some vault, in utter, rayless blackness, knowing neither how she came there nor whether there was a way out. Oppressed by this horror, she lifted her eyes to the window, to see a star, to see a little light of any sort. What she there saw turned her to stone. At the window, obscuring the star's rays, was the black figure of a man. She could not see the face, she saw only the shape of the head, and arms, and hands spread out against the panes. The figure stood looking in and at her. Her eyes filmed over, and her head swam. She heard the casement struck, and the tear of the lead and tinkle of broken glass on the brick floor, and then something fell at her feet with a metallic click. When she recovered herself, the figure was gone, but the wind piped and blew chill through the rent lattice. How many minutes passed before she recovered herself sufficiently to rise and light a candle she never knew, nor did it matter. When she had obtained a light she stooped with it, and groped upon the floor. Mrs. Sharland was awakened by a piercing scream. She sprang from her bed and rushed into the adjoining room. There stood Mehalah, in the light of the broken candle lying melting and flaring on the floor, her hair fallen