Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 2 (1925-02).djvu/187



OFT beams of mellow light played about the shaded lamp on the long mahogany table. Like exquisitely fashioned swords of gold, they pierced the gray twilight that crept in from the silent street. In a corner of the big room, delicate wreaths of amethyst smoke rose into the air, and two men, comfortably seated in luxuriously upholstered Morris chairs, gazed through this with leisurely contentment.

"You promised to tell me of your strange adventure tonight, Richard."

The man addressed started up from his comfortable position.

"Yes," he answered softly.

The twilight had begun to deepen, and the beams from the shaded lamp appeared more mellow in the deepening gray. Weird and grotesquely lengthened shadows flitted across the somber walls. Wreaths of amethyst smoke still rose in fantastic coils to the ceiling. Richard Held, who had promised to tell the strange tale, was leaning forward. His thin face was stamped with eager excitement. He got rid of his cigar, and for a moment or two he flinched nervously in his chair. Then he composed himself, and in a soft voice, mellowed by the great sorrow he had been through, he began to recount his tale:

"When my sweetheart, dear little Fleurette, died last year, after a brief illness, I was so overcome with grief that my health was disastrously affected. For I was a man of very sensitive temperament and easily susceptible to adverse conditions, and this misfortune pained me keenly. Within two weeks my mental faculties were so affected by the tragedy that a prominent psychiatrist informed my friends that my reason would surely be gone unless something were done to divert me from my grief.

"It is needless to say that I was compelled to retire temporarily from my business and to be confined within my home. There I spent the greater part of the day in my room, where I sat resignedly, the silence deep about me and my soul weighed down with sorrow. Spells of melancholia came upon me. Invariably, after these passed, I would see her face peering out from a darkened corner of the room. And her features were always in an angelic smile, which put a great comfort into my soul. Then there were times when I became too wearied by the great monotony of it all and fell into a peaceful slumber. Then I would hear her sweet voice again and see her lovely face—but they were faint, always faint. And when I began to wonder at their strange faintness, I awoke. Then the sad realization came upon me, and sometimes I