“There!” She nodded her head frantically, looking beyond me at the wall. I turned; and saw a slowly-travelling centipede—truly a monstrum horrendum. It was about an inch and a half long, its body was encased in overlapping dusky-red scales, and its innumerable legs, unlike the brief pedicles of its more northern brethren, were as long as a house-spider’s, but like fine hairs. I seized up one of Fifine’s shoes that stood outside the door, flattened out the visitor with it, and he fell defunct.
“O, what was it?” She shivered. “Have you killed it?”
“As dead as Charity,” I assured her. “It was just a shield-bearing centipede, Fifine. Nothing worse. You find them about here.”
“Will another come?”
“I should think it unlikely.”
“Felix—will you—will you sit by me till I go to sleep?”
“I ought not to, you know, m’amie.”
“I will shut my eyes; I will not speak to you—not one word. Felix, I am very lonely and miserable.”
“Hush, child. Close your eyes, then. I will stay only on condition that you are absolutely true to your promise.”
She lay down at once, turning from me to obey. I just pushed to the door without latching it, and went and sat as far from her as possible. It was a strange vigil that followed; and yet I never once felt chill throughout it. The blood was always throbbing through my veins like a living fire; little reels of vertigo seemed to take me from time to time, half blissful, half delirious. When my thoughts grew masterful, my soul grew weak; and in those kind and pitiful moods I had to force myself to keep my place, lest a single movement should precipitate a tragedy. But I could not hide the truth from myself any longer. We must go home, I said to my suffering conscience: we must end it and go home. Did she guess the torture in my mind—had she even invited it? In that case I had a formidable task before me indeed.