The room
seemed, if possible, closer, more suffocating. He beckoned to Lisbeth
and she went and stood near him. He was to put her through a still
harder ordeal.
"You have never cared for me," he whispered.
There was no sound except for the steady pour outside and the rustle of
Miss Etta's garments as she made angry motions to Lisbeth. Even at this
moment, I believe, had he shown sign of any honest wish for affection,
she would have given all she had.
"Not for many years," she said, and for the first time her voice shook.
"_Ah--h!_" His breath went inwards.
Suddenly he began to fumble among the bed clothes.
"The picture," he said incoherently, "your mother's picture. Pick it
up," he ordered, his eyelids drooping strangely. "No--no--under the
_bed_."
Before I could stop her she had dropped to her knees and was fumbling
among the rolls of dust under the bed. An overpowering dread had
clutched at me, forcing the air from my lungs. But in that instant he
had raised himself, by what must have been an almost incredible exercise
of will, and grabbed her by the throat.
"_Curse you!_" he cried, shaking her as one would a rat, "you and your
mother--_cur_--"
His hands dropped away, limp and brittle like withered leaves. He fell
back.--
* * * * *
Of course they will always find excuses for the dead, and eulogies.
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