Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/290

278 get the best of him, when the game was blown upon and the fight began. And at last I thought of something which I had chanced upon in India.

"It was one night when I lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. I had been drinking. The drink had been bad. Among the goblins which it brought to my bedside were thoughts of my brother. I thought of how the luck had all been his; of what a grip he had; of his bone and muscle; of how, in our quarrels, it always had gone hard with me; of how, in the next one, which was close at hand, it would go harder still. He was more than a match for me all round. In peace or war he was the stronger man. How could I get even with him? How? "Then I thought of the Goddess. It was from herself that the first inspiration came; she precipitated herself, as the occultists have it, into my mind. I suspected it then; I know it now. She had remained, till then, in the packing-case in which I brought her home. She had never been out of it, not once. I had never taken the trouble to unpack her. She might have feared she was forgotten; felt herself slighted. No; that's not her way. She knows she'll never be forgotten; and as for slights, she never will be slighted when there's need of her. She had been waiting; that was all—waiting for her time.