The Threatening EyeKnight, E. F. (Edward Frederick)
General
The Threatening Eye
Knight, E. F. (Edward Frederick)
Fiction
She took up her cloak and hat, stood for a few moments looking fixedly
at him, the very picture of intense hate, and hissed through her teeth,
"I leave you--madman! Idiot! You will have the horrors soon, and perhaps
then you will see faces more pitiless and loathsome than even mine--I
leave you to enjoy yourself with them. Good-bye, dear, good-bye!" and
she left his rooms.
When she had got out of the gate at the top of Middle Temple Lane into
Fleet Street, she did not immediately leave the spot, but stood a few
moments considering her position. She knew the man she had left was on
the verge of a severe attack of delirium tremens. She thought it highly
probable that in his present condition he would not remain alone in his
chambers, but would soon be driven out by the fever within him once more
into the deserted streets. She would wait and watch his proceedings from
a safe distance. It would be amusing. So with this object in view she
crossed to the other side of the road and stood there.
Her surmise was correct. She had not to wait many minutes. The gate
swung open, and the barrister staggered out. The porter looked out after
him for a few seconds, and then closed the door again.
Hudson did not perceive her. A new mood was on him. He walked slowly
along Fleet Street westwards, his eyes turned to the ground.
Suddenly a fantastic idea seized his ever-changing mind. He would go
down Devereux Court. He would look at the doorway in which he had first
found Mary Grimm.
Susan Riley followed him afar off, like a vulture waiting till its prey
fall.
At last he came to the dark doorway, and then followed a strange scene,
which the observer, not having the clue to it, merely set down to the
unreasoning frenzy of one mad with drink.
The poor wretch sobbed aloud. He threw out his arms towards the door,
and kissed the panels against which the young girl had crouched in that
summer evening long ago. Then with a cry he cast himself on the ground
and kissed the stones on which her feet had trod.
It often happens that when a mind is in the condition his was in then,
exalted by disease, it will for a moment become unnaturally clear and
acute, capable of suffering impossible to the sane. So there arose
suddenly to his crazed mind so vivid a vision of his past--of what might
have been--of what was, so terrible a contrast, that in his anguish and
despair he deliberately dashed his head violently three times against
the stone column of the house; then he rose up to his full height, the
blood streaming down his features, gazed wildly round for a few seconds,
and fell down on his face, insensible.
Susan Riley, pale, calm, with a bitter smile on her mouth, watched all
this. Then she went to him, turned his face upwards, and gazed at it
with the same unmoved expression; that once noble face, now distorted,
hideous, with the locks steeped with blood lying on the brow, and the
red stream trickling over it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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