“Very likely.”
“Yes; but when you have thought it over, tell me, some day, how many men and women you know of whom you can say that. If you know one, you will do well.”
Dr. Harvey, as he said these words, rose to leave the library, but stopped and stood, as there appeared at that moment at the hall door the figure of a man who was apparently passing through the hall. So silent and so sudden was his coming, and so singular his aspect, that the younger of the two men, perceiving him, started violently in involuntary surprise, and was conscious of a disagreeable sensation along the course of his veins.
This man, who had approached the door with noiseless steps, might have been young, or might have been old. He was of unusual height, with narrow shoulders, short body, and disproportionate length of limb. His face, an elongated oval, was of as smooth surface as that of a woman, and of the shape and pale even colour of an egg. The enormous forehead, the eyes, small and narrow, set wide apart and obliquely, the flattened nose, the straight, wide, almost lipless mouth, combined with an expression of crafty complacence to give the man a singularly alien semblance. As he stood, he smiled slowly, a smile which emphasized both the craftiness and the complacency of his expression, and remarked in a high, thin voice:—
“Just going, Doctor? Make yourself at home here, that’s all right.”
He carried a rather large, morocco-bound note-book in one hand, and a silver pencil-case in the other. His hands were extremely delicate and white, with sinuous, flexible fingers, of such phenomenal length as to suggest an extra, simian joint. They conveyed to the young clergyman a sense of expressing the same craft as the face, and a yet more palpable cruelty. The unpleasant impression became more pronounced, for, seeing the hands, young Nichols involuntarily shivered.
Probably this fact was not noticed by the newcomer, but, having thus spoken and smiling one more chilling smile, he passed on to the other end of the hall.
Eyes rather than voice asked in astonishment, “Who is that?”
“Oliver Ingraham, the senator’s son,” was the elder clergyman’s reply, as they left the library together, “the son of his first wife.” Dr. Harvey was Mrs. Ingraham’s pastor.
“Incredible!” cried the other, under his breath. “I never saw him, never heard of his existence.”