Page:The Zeppelin Destroyer.djvu/136

 'Through what?' I asked, eager to induce her to tell her story.

'No,' she answered. 'You—you would never believe me!—you would never understand! Oh! that woman! Look!' and in terror she raised her finger and pointed again straight before her. 'Look! Don't you see her! She's fixed her eyes upon me—those awful leopard's eyes!'

'There's nobody here, Roseye,' I assured her. 'You're alone with me.'

'Alone! Why, no. She's there—see straight over there!' cried my love, her face distorted by wild terror. 'Ah! she's coming nearer!' she shrieked, again covering her face with her hands, as though to shut out the imaginary face.

'Ugh!' she shuddered. 'Don't let her touch me! Don't let her touch me! Don't, Claude—for Heaven's sake, I beg of you. That woman—that awful woman with the leopard's eyes!'

'Come, come,' I said, rather severely. 'You must not give way to these hallucinations, Roseye. There's nobody here, I assure you. It's all'

'But she is here!' she shrieked. 'You can't deceive me; She's here—with us. Perhaps you can't see her—but I can. Oh! those horrible eyes—the fiend! Ah! what I have suffered!'

I did not reply. I was at a loss how to act. Sight of my beloved betraying such abject terror unnerved me.

Too well did I recollect the story of the railway signalman near Welwyn, how, when the night-express came out of the tunnel tearing north from London, he had distinctly seen two women struggling. One was in the grasp of the other.