Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/274

262 Moore here, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, if you're capable of shame, which I'm beginning to doubt Surely your own sense of decency, embryonic though it may be, ought to have told you that it is no place for her. What is this den which you have brought her to?"

"Here is some one who can tell you better than I. Ask him, not me."

Lawrence broke into laughter.

"That's it, Ferguson. Hume, ask the corpse."

Hume stared at the speaker, as if he had been a spectre; which, apparently, he was more than half disposed to believe that he was.

"Lawrence! Edwin Lawrence! Is it a living man, some demoniacal likeness, or is it a ghost? My God! is it a ghost?"

Again Lawrence laughed. He went closer to the bewildered doctor; his eyes flaming, his manner growing wilder as he continued speaking.

"A ghost, Hume, write it down a ghost! I wonder if I could cheat myself into believing I'm a ghost? Hume, you're an authority on madness. Look at me; do you think I'm mad? It's a question I've been putting to myself since—she began to be humorous. I see things—I hear things—like the men who've been—thirsty. There's a face which looks into mine—a face all cut and slashed and sliced into ribbons; and, as