Across the yard—to the left over the short stone bridge, under whose arch the choked mill-tail tumbled and snarled—a little further and up Chis’ll street, with a sharp swerve to the right, the hunted man rushed with Duke at his heels. Then a hundred yards on, in one lightning-like moment, Jason, giving out in a breathless impulse of despair, as it seemed, threw himself against the shadowy buttress of a wall, crouching with his back to the angle of it; Duke, checking his flying footsteps some paces short of his victim, came to a sudden stop; and I, carried forward by my own impetus, almost fell against the cripple, and, staggering, seized him by the arms from behind, and so held him fiercely, my lungs pumping like piston rods. Suddenly I marveled to find my captive offering no resistance.
Seeking for the reason of this collapse, I raised my eyes and wondered: “Can this account for it?”
We stood outside Dr. Crackenthorpe’s house. Light came through a lower window, immediately opposite us, and set in the luminous square, like an ugly shadow on a wall, was the profile and upper half of the body of the doctor himself. He seemed to be bending over some task and the outline of his face was clearly defined.
Suddenly the clothed flesh of the arms I grasped seemed to flicker, as it were, with shuddering convulsion, and from the lips of the man held against me the breath came sibilant like the breath of one caught in a horror of nightmare.
Before I could think how to act the figure of the doctor rose erect, and I saw him fix his hat on his head. Evidently he was preparing to leave the house.
I felt myself drawn irresistibly to one side. Helpless as a child, I stumbled in the wake of the cripple, tripping over his heels at every step. He hardly seemed to notice the drag set upon him, but stole into a patch of deep shadow, without the dim wedge of light cast through the window, and I had to go, too, if I would keep my hold on him.
Crouching there, with what secret terror on one side and marvel on the other it is impossible to describe, we saw the dark street and the driving rain traversed by a shaft of light as the hall door was pulled open, and become blackness again with its closing. Then, descending the shallow flight of steps, his head bent to the storm, and one hand raised to his hat, the doctor came into view and the whole body of the cripple seemed to shoot rigid with sudden tension.
This fourth actor on the scene, turning away from us, walked, unconscious of Jason hidden in the shadow as he passed him, up the street, his hand still to his head, his long skirts driven in front of him by the wind, so that he looked as if his destiny were pulling him reluctant forward by all-embracing leading strings.
As he went up the slope and vanished in the darkness, a groan as if of pent-up agony issued from Duke, and immediately he drew me from the shadow and round to the foot of the steps.
A chink of light that divided the blackness above us, showed that the door had not been closed to. Probably the doctor had gone forth on some brief errand only, and would return in a moment.