Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/147

Rh me—you were there. Don't you remember that you came into the room?"

She spoke with a touch of sudden excitement. Mrs. Peddar resented her words with unusual heat.

"You wicked girl! To say such a thing, after all that he has done for you! You'll be saying next that I was there."

I endeavoured to appease my enthusiastic partisan.

"Gently, Mrs. Peddar. I am not at all sure that what Miss Moore says is not correct. I, too, suffered last night from dreams. I dreamed that I went to Edwin Lawrence's rooms, and saw him murdered; whether I saw with the actual or the spiritual eye, I cannot tell; but, in any case, all that I did see was seen as in a glass darkly."

"Did you see me?"

"I cannot be certain. I saw some one who I now believe to have been you."

"Did you see It?"

"It?"

"The—the creature—the dreadful thing!"

"My vision was blurred; I saw nothing plain, it had all the indistinctness of a nightmare, but—I was oppressed by the consciousness of some hideous presence in the room. What was—the thing?"

"I don't know; I can't think. I'm afraid to try! It did it all."