Page:Possession (1926).pdf/87

 Mrs. Seton said, "I can see Mr. Murdock is very tired. We mustn't keep him up. . . . Mr. Seton will show you your room."

So Clarence bade them good night and, led by his soft-footed host, made his way through the dark halls until the corset manufacturer opened a door and admitted him to a room that was damp with the chill of a tomb. The sudden flicker of the gas revealed an enormous bed with the cotton sheets turned back.

"Here," said Mr. Seton, with a contracted gesture of the hand intended clearly to be hospitable. "You will find it a little chilly in the spare room, but it is a cold night. Once you're in bed it'll be warm enough."

Clarence murmured polite protests and Mr. Seton withdrew, closing the door behind him. The sound of its closing had a curious effect upon Clarence. For a moment he was tempted to turn suddenly, fling it open and run for his life. Why he should have experienced this impulse he did not know. The whole sensation was confused, disturbing, a part of the wretchedness which had overcome him as he saw the stranger enter her cab and drive off in the direction of the great black house among the flaming mills. He had visited this house before. . . many times. He knew the habits of its owners. They had not changed. It was clear that the trouble lay hidden in himself. Something had happened to him, something quite outside his neat and pigeon-holed calculations. He had come prepared to win success and a comfortable wife, and now. . . instead of that there was fear of something vague and indefinable, a curious instinct to escape from some dreadful trap.

For a time he sat quietly on a stiff chair, his overcoat thrown across his knees, trying to discover the cause of his uneasiness. It was entangled in some strange way with the woman of the veil. ''The Setons. . . . I know who they are although I don't know them. And then, I'm careful who I speak to. . . . I knew I should be safe with you.''

Certainly he was not in love with her. Such a thing had never