He was mad with rage and fury and hate and sorrow. He thought of Margaret’s anguish and of her fiendish torture, and he wished the man had ten lives so that he might take them one by one. And at last all was still, and that vast mass of flesh was motionless, and he knew that his enemy was dead. He loosened his grasp and slipped one hand over the heart. It would never beat again. The man was stone dead. Arthur got up and straightened himself. The darkness was intense still, and he could see nothing. Susie heard him, and at length she was able to speak.
“Arthur, what have you done?”
“I’ve killed him,” he said hoarsely.
“O God, what shall we do?”
Arthur began to laugh aloud, hysterically, and in the darkness his hilarity was terrifying.
“For God’s sake let us have some light.”
“I’ve found the matches,” said Dr. Porhoët.
He seemed to awake suddenly from his long stupor. He struck one, and it would not light. He struck another, and Susie took off the globe and the chimney as he kindled the wick. Then he held up the lamp, and they saw Arthur looking at them. His face was ghastly. The sweat ran off his forehead in great beads, and his eyes were bloodshot. He trembled in every limb. Then Dr. Porhoët advanced with the lamp and held it forward. They looked down on the floor for the man who lay there dead. Susie gave a sudden cry of horror.
There was no one there.
Arthur stepped back in terrified surprise. There was no one in the room, living or dead, but the
