Page:Weird Tales Volume 02 Number 2 (1937-02).djvu/73

 corners as though they were jocularly playing hide-and-seek with one another. They left London with regret, although they rather looked forward to the peace and quietude of Stanbury Downs.

Then as abruptly as happiness came to them, it was shattered. Without warning, Guy disappeared again. For a week Gloria remained at the little house, but he did not return. So at last she sailed for New York.

In Gloria's mind doubt was taking root. It seemed unnatural for Guy to disappear twice so mysteriously. She was not worried—she was annoyed. In New York she consulted her lawyer, who in turn got into touch with the best detective agencies, but not the slightest trace of Guy could be found.

Thus five months rolled by and then again he returned. He was very thin. His clothes hung upon him like sack-cloth. If he noticed that Gloria was rather cool in her greeting he did not show it.

more I have had a most peculiar experience," he told her. "As I walked down Hambleton Road that day in Stanbury Downs I came upon an old woman seated in a carriage that looked as though it might have been the first one ever made. She was driving a horse so thin that it seemed ready to fall apart. Only the skin held its bones together. I am sure that had it not been for the shafts it would have fallen. The old woman was calling shrilly to someone in a cracked querulous voice. I glanced about, and as there was nobody in sight I assumed she was calling to me. So I strode over to her.

"'Please come with me,' she implored; "my good man is ill and I think as ow 'e is dyin'. I'm so 'fraid. 'Tis a doctor I wish to be goin' for but 'e lives a good ten miles away an' I cannot leave the good man for long.'

"Although I was not at all impressed with the crafty-looking old woman, I clambered into the carriage beside her. As we went along she kept up a babbling chatter which was very irritating. I was bored to death and anxious to get away, but I was bent on an errand of mercy and so I stifled my boredom.

"We rode into the hills through endless winding roads, and I wondered why the old dame had not gone at once for a doctor if she had been able to leave her 'good man' for such a long period. Then I reasoned that although we had seemed to be on the road for a great while we had perhaps ridden only a few miles, for our horse just sauntered along as though bound for no place at all. But at last we arrived at an immense house in the center of a wood. It was falling into ruin and appeared deserted. The porch sagged at a perilous angle. One end of the roof had caved in. Most of the windows were broken and the chimney was a wreck. Although the building had probably once been quite pretentious it was now ugly. The dull gray boards held not the slightest remainder of paint. Nor was the house the only thing of ruin, for the barn had utterly fallen in, a com-crib near by was about to collapse and the fence in front of the house was down and half buried in the mud. The remains of an unkempt garden grew about the door, a few straggly bushes and a tangle of grapevines almost submerged in weeds.

"The old lady laboriously climbed down from the carriage, though not without a good deal of puffing and muttering of invectives which, though they were gibberish to me, created an unpleasant impression.

" '' Ere we are,' she muttered, 'an' it do be good to be back.'

"She led the way into the hall. It was even more dingy than the outside of the