She twisted her tattered handkerchief about her fingers nervously. "Zat I do not rightly know," she finally managed to ejaculate. "Père d'Arcy, he ees dying, we theenk. We were weeth heem. We hear a noise outside. We look through ze window. Zere was a face peering een at us--a horrible face, doctaire. Eet was ze face of _le Diable_." She stopped, shuddering like one who suffers from the ague. Lamontaine glared at her and she continued. "We scream. Zen ze awful face disappear and through ze window come ze shape--ze shapeless shape! Lak' a ghos' eet was--wizout form, yet eet had ze form! _Oui_, I cannot explain eet, doctaire!" She broke off her recital and gave way to shuddering sobs, her face buried in her hands. Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder again and shook her roughly. The old woman recommenced her hysterical howling. "Talk!" Lamontaine snapped, shaking the woman until her teeth chattered. "Time is of value now. Talk!" The woman ceased her convulsive sobbing and looked at the big physician pathetically. "Eet was awful--horrible!" she said finally. "Père d'Arcy, he give ze wild scream. Ze theeng--ze awful theeng--drop upon heem like ze great veil. Jacques, he moan again and again. Zen, ze moan, eet, too, stop. We have rush out and we are here. We are afraid of ze theeng. Zen you come----" Lamontaine shoved her aside and, darting to the door of the sickroom, seized the knob and jerked it open. The room was in darkness, yet the light, shining through the open door from the outer room, was strong enough to reveal the scene that was being enacted. Even Lamontaine, inured though he was to death and violence, shrank back. Old Jacques d'Arcy lay upon the floor by the side of the bed. His face, glaring up at them, was twisted into a horrible contortion, the eyes protruding as if they had been squeezed from their sockets. His body was shriveled into a million wrinkles; it was like a toy balloon that has been deflated. Over the dead man was a form--a strange, gossamer-like wraith, vague, shadowy, indistinct. The physician had an impression of malignant eyes glaring at him--of a slit of a mouth drawn back into a wolfish snarl. Yet there were no eyes--no mouth. The thing was shapeless. Recovering himself, Lamontaine took a step forward. The hellish thing seemed about to spring at him. Then it drew back as if reluctant to leave the body of its victim. Slowly it dissolved itself--floating away like a bit of vapor, through the open window. Lamontaine turned to the others who stood shuddering in the doorway. The old woman took up her hysterical wailing again. A faint odor filled the room. It was strange, indistinguishable, horrible, nauseating. It was the odor of death. The thing from beyond, gorged with vitality, had reached a point in its development where it was visible to human eyes. _3. Out of the Night_