The Slayer of SoulsChambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Science
The Slayer of Souls
Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)
Conspiracies -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Magic -- Fiction
“They did more. They left at the foot of your bed and at the foot of
your wife’s bed two white sheets. And a knife lay in the centre of each
sheet. That, of course, is the symbol of the Sect of Assassins.”
Cleves nodded. His body, as he leaned there on the window sill in the
moonlight, trembled. But his face had grown dark with rage.
“If I could—could only get my hands on one of them,” he whispered
hoarsely.
“Be careful. Don’t wear a face like that. Your wife is looking at us,”
murmured Recklow.
With an effort Cleves raised his head and smiled across the room at his
wife.
“Our luggage will be sent over shortly,” he said. “If you’re tired,
we’ll say good-night.”
So she rose and the three men came to make their adieux and pay their
compliments and devoirs. Then, with a smile that seemed almost happy,
she went into her own apartment on her husband’s arm.
Cleves and his wife had connecting bedrooms and a sitting-room between.
Here they paused for a moment before the always formal ceremony of
leave-taking at night. There were roses on the centre table. Tressa
dropped one hand on the table and bent over the flowers.
“They seem so friendly,” she said under her breath.
He thought she meant that she found even in flowers a refuge from the
solitude of a loveless marriage.
He said quietly: “I think you will find the world very friendly, if you
wish.” But she shook her head, looking at the roses.
Finally he said good-night and she extended her hand, and he took it
formally.
Then their hands fell away. Tressa turned and went toward her bedroom.
At the door she stopped, turned slowly.
“What shall I do about Yulun?” she asked.
“What is there to do? Yulun is in China.”
“Yes, her body is.”
“Do you mean that the rest of her—whatever it is—could come here?”
“Why, of course.”
“So that Benton could see her?”
“Yes.”
“Could he see her just as she is? Her face and figure—clothes and
everything?”
“Yes.”
“Would she seem real or like a ghost—spirit—whatever you choose to call
such things?”
Tressa smiled. “She’d be exactly as real as you or I, Victor. She’d
seem like anybody else.”
“That’s astonishing,” he muttered. “Could Benton hear her speak?”
“Certainly.”
“Talk to her?”
Tressa laughed: “Of course. If Yulun should _make the effort_ she could
leave her body as easily as she undresses herself. It is no more
difficult to divest one’s self of one’s body than it is to put off one
garment and put on another.... And, somehow, I think Yulun will do it
to-night.”
“Come _here_?”
“It would be like her.” Tressa laughed. “Isn’t it odd that she should
have become so enamoured of Mr. Benton—just seeing him there in the
moonlight that night at Orchid Lodge?”
For a moment the smile curved her lips, then the shadow fell again
across her eyes, veiling them in that strange and lovely way which
Cleves knew so well; and he looked into her impenetrable eyes in
troubled silence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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