Somebody and were indignant at not being allowed to get at Him; they gave you the impression that it would be quite as much as your life would be worth to venture into their midst.
Peter had, during a number of hours, endeavoured to pierce the soul of Mortimer Stant—meanwhile as the wind howled, the rain lashed the windows of his room, and the personality of Mr. Stant faded farther and farther away into ultimate distance, Peter was increasingly conscious that he was listening for something.
He had felt himself surrounded by this strange sense of anticipation before. Sometimes it had stayed with him for a short period only, sometimes it had extended over days—always it brought with it an emotion of excitement and even, if he had analysed it sufficiently, fear.
He was suddenly conscious, in the naked spaces of his barely-furnished room, of the personality of his father. So conscious was he that he got up from his table and stood at the rain-swept window, looking out into the orchard, as though he expected to see a sinister figure creeping, stealthily, from behind the trees. In his thoughts of his father there was no compunction, no accusing scruples of neglect, only a perfectly concrete, active sense, in some vague way, of force pitted against force.
It might be summed up in the conviction that “the old man was not done with him yet”—and as Peter turned back from the window, almost relieved that he had, indeed, seen no creeping figure amongst the dark trees, he was aware that never since the days of his starvation in Bucket Lane, had he been so conscious of those threatening memories of Scaw House and its inhabitants.
At that, almost as he reached his table, there was a knock on his door.
“Come in,” he cried and, scorning himself for his fears, faced the maid with staring eyes.
“Two gentlemen to see you, sir,” she said, “I have shown them into the study.”
“Is Mrs. Westcott in?”
“No, sir. She told me that she would not be back until six o'clock, sir.”
“I will come down.”
