Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 6 (1925-06).djvu/96



by Greye La Spina

A Serial Novel

ORTIA flung herself down upon the cushions near me, her eyes blazing with that somber light so unlike her usual gentle expression.

“Oh, it seems incredible! And yet—even the most skeptical would have to believe, after learning what I have learned. I must work hard from now on, or that fiend in human form will have gotten the best of us all—and that house will have become a veritable shambles. Ugh!”

“And Owen?”

She turned melting eyes upon me; her lips quivered until she drew them firmly together into a straight line.

“Owen, Auntie? Oh, he must be the least in my thoughts, Owen whom I love! It may be that I shall be called upon to sacrifice even Owen, to save others for whom I care nothing!”

“Portia! Sacrifice Owen?”

“Auntie, to snare that ancient evil I may be obliged to permit Owen to walk into her net. That’s what I mean. Don’t think I want to do it. God knows I don’t. But God knows, too, that from now on my life is  Rh