Page:Weird Tales Volume 9 Number 6 (1927-06).djvu/9

Rh across the sky, and against these light spots, outlining them abruptly, were massively upreared structures of ebony-black shadow. The garden she thought she knew so well was like an unknown, entirely new country and one that, oddly enough, seemed to hold a dark threat in those ominous shadows that crept upon and engulfed the moonlit spots that relieved its blackness.

A slow shudder crept over the slight figure of the lame girl, who leaned back instinctively against the curtain and toward the soft and homely light of the tall lamp beneath which sat her father and his old friend at their game of chess. Still her gaze was held by the garden in its new aspect.

Out of the black shadows a figure advanced into a moonlit space, and like some goddess of the night lifted slim arms to her sister queen floating in her cloud chariot overhead. Out upon the hush of the night floated the rich notes Clare so adored. “Ah,” she murmured with a kind of relief in her voice, “Margaret is going to sing.”

The song was Ned Wentworth’s Ode to the Queen of Night. It was the favorite lyric in Ned’s last musical comedy, then crowding one of New York’s best theaters night after night, incidentally filling Ned’s pockets with gold. Clare closed her eyes that the velvet tones might have their full effect upon her entranced senses.

At the other end of the room, the chess players stopped their game to listen, the chess board carefully balanced across their old knees. Father Rooney characteristically lifted his kindly eyes heavenward, although his physical gaze was limited by the low ceiling; the old doctor’s eyes went straight to the great portrait that hung over the divan, the portrait of his dead wife.

For Clare the evil spell lying upon the garden was broken. The strange enchantment with its vague threat passed away at the thrill of that dear voice. As the tones died away on a lingering high note, she turned her face upon her sister and opened her eyes. Margaret was apparently all alone in the still night and the lonely garden. The chess players had resumed their game the lame girl could hear their occasional low murmurs.

“Where can Ned be?” she questioned as she gazed.

Ned Wentworth had been standing in the black shadow of a great walnut tree, watching the throbbing of Margaret’s full throat as her rich notes poured out their benediction upon the still night air. His heart expanded so painfully that it seemed it must burst; her beauty actually hurt him. He looked hungrily at the great coils of heavy auburn hair, gleaming with gold under the magical light of the autumn moon; he saw as if for the first time the healthy pallor of her clear skin thrown into relief as she lifted her face upward in her invocation to the Queen of Night; he followed the line of the fine throat that swept into and was absorbed by the noble curve of her bust; and he clenched his fists with his effort to control himself—he felt that he could no longer refrain from telling her how madly he loved her.

He stepped impulsively toward her as the last gorgeous notes quivered upon the cool silence and died softly away. She paused, hands still outstretched as she had stood while singing, lost in the maze of emotion that had suddenly swept over her at Ned’s impulsive movement. Rich scarlet began to mount in her cheeks until they blazed hotly under the tranquil light of the cold Lady of Night. Into the broad sweep of moonlight beside her stepped her lover, his gray eyes almost black with the intensity of his feeling; he did not speak, nor did she. It appeared to them that they had