The Pyjama Man (Ainslee's, 1913)/Chapter 9

Long after he had gone Meg sat in the sand, still staring out to sea; and when at last she rose and toiled slowly up the cliff track her movements were those of one in a trance.

In her own room, she knelt at the open window, outwardly engrossed in the beams of a newly risen moon that filtered through the avenue trees and danced on the unkempt lawn.

The house was deathly still. Her father had been out all day, and had not yet returned. The actress was attending a farewell dinner at Sydney's best restaurant, tendered her by the favored few to whom she had disclosed her identity.

Meg was alone, and for the first time in her life knew what that meant—to stand, as it were, a detached spectator, watching one's world and everything it held crumble and fade. The pyjama man was going—in another two days he would be gone—with a laugh even as he had come. The thought had a quickening influence; she glanced swiftly about her, as if seeking a tangible weapon of revenge, and as if by a miracle she found one.

A mere thread of yellow light it was, cast from the workshop window, and feebly vying with a brilliant moon that now rode clear of the avenue trees. The actress had left her lamp burning.

“Laugh back,” he had said. For a moment Meg knelt, staring at the yellow glow; then of a sudden she threw back her head and obeyed.

The shrillness of it startled her, and she scrambled to her feet. The moonlight flooded the room, and she caught a sudden glimpse of her own reflection in a mirror by the window. A tousled, diabolical little witch in a boy's bathing suit and a blue kimono looked back at her from the glass. Again she laughed—softly, defiantly, and tossed the hair from about her face. Down the dark stairs she sped, and out into the garden.

At the workshop window she paused. The lamp was there—alight, on the table by the window—but “the work” was gone.

The blood ebbed from her face, leaving it pale as the moonlight about her; then, as her feverish glance discovered the familiar manuscript on a bookshelf behind the door, an indescribable little sound—half sigh, half hiss—escaped her, and, leaning through the window, she upset the lamp with a steady hand.

Simultaneously with the crash of glass a tongue of flame quivered across the table and dripped to the floor

The rest Meg watched from the veranda steps, sitting huddled with wide eyes and fluttering breath, like some malicious elf awed by the mischief it has wrought.

If she could have helped in the work of demolition she would have done so at that moment with an unholy joy; but she could do no more—only sit and watch and gloat; and with inaction coherent thought filtered slowly back to her brain.

What—exactly what—had she done? Then quite suddenly, even as one side of the flimsy building burst into flames, she saw herself as she was, and her head fell forward on her arms.

When she lifted it, the woman looked out of Meg's eyes. She rose without haste, and approached the burning building, but a gust of fire-laden wind drove her back. Again and again she tried, and was beaten back. Then something more than the woman took possession of her. She shook back the singed masses of her hair as she did when a Pacific roller gave her undue trouble in the handling, and literally hurled herself at the door. It gave under the impact, and she scrambled to her feet, groping blindly above her head with blistered hands. At last something crisp met her touch. She seized it, and, staggering into the open, fell face downward in the grass.

So they found her—those attracted by the glare—and as they lifted her a bundle of papers, curled and charred at the corners, fluttered from her arms.