For
a second he stood where he had risen, then terror loosened his knees, and
he sank back into his chair. His mouth fell open, and the trembling lips
were drawn down at the corners like those of a sobbing child; his cheeks
turned whiter than the lawn collar at his throat, and his eyes, wide open
in a horrid stare, were fixed on mine and, powerless to avert them, he met
my gaze--cold, stern, and implacable.
For a moment we remained thus, and I marvelled greatly to see a man whose
heart, if full of evil, I had yet deemed stout enough, stricken by fear
into so parlous and pitiful a condition.
Then I had the explanation of it as he lifted his right hand and made the
sign of the cross, first upon himself, then in the air, whilst his lips
moved, and I guessed that to himself he was muttering some prayer of
exorcising purport. There was the solution of the terror--sweat that stood
out in beads upon his brow--he had deemed me a spectre; the spectre of a
man he believed to have foully done to death on a spot across the Loire
visible from the window at my back.
At last he sufficiently mastered himself to break the awful silence.
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