Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/275

Rh the blood streams down the cheek-bones, which are laid all bare, its teeth grin at me, inside the torn and broken jaws, and it says, 'After all I've done, this is the end!' I strike at it, with both my fists, where the eyeballs ought to be, but I can't knock it away; it won't go, it keeps on being there, I can't sleep, though I'd give all the world to. I'm afraid to try, because, when I shut my eyes, I see it plainer. The blood gets on my hands; the taste gets into my mouth; the idiot words get on my brain, 'After all I've done, this is the end!' I can't get away from the face and the words; whatever I do, wherever I go, they're there. I seem to carry them with me. I've been drinking, but I can't drink enough to shut them out; I can't get drunk. And, Hume, do you think I'm mad? I hope I am. For while I'm being tortured she laughs; she keeps laughing all the time. It's her notion of a jest. I hope that it's but a madman's fancy, what I see and hear; and that, when I get my reason back again, they'll go—the face and the words. You're a scientific man. Tell me if I'm mad."

Hume turned towards me. His countenance was pasty-hued.

"What devil's trick is this?"

Lawrence answered, in his own fashion, as if the question had been addressed to him.