Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/341

 —The stars were shut out, the moon the world was dead.

Then into this sealed and hidden silence, a voice crying from an upper room, suddenly fell—a woman in the abandonment of utter pain, pain beyond all control, was screaming. Somewhere, above that dark forest that pressed in upon the house, a bird of prey hovered. It hung for a moment; it descended—its talons were fixed upon her flesh then again it ascended. Shriek after shriek, bursting the silence, chasing the shadows, flooding the secrecy with horrible light, beat like blows upon the walls of the house—rose, fell, rose again. Peter was standing, his back against the wall, his hands spread out, his face grey.

“My God, my God Oh! my God!”

The sweat poured from his forehead. Once more there was silence but now it was ominous, awful

The little silver clock ticked—Peter's body stood stretched against the wall—he faced the door.

Hours, hours passed. He did not move. The screaming had, many years ago, ceased. The doctor—a cheerful man with blue eyes and a little bristling moustache—came in.

“A fine boy, Mr. Westcott—I congratulate you. You might see your wife for a moment if you cared—stood it remarkably well—”

Slowly the forest, dark and terrible, moved away from the house. Very faintly again could be heard the distant rattling of some cab, the murmur of trams.