“I don’t know.... Gone.... Let me touch you. Let me feel your arm.... Come, it’s in here.”
He felt her pressing against him, sensed the shuddering of her body as she led him into the library. “There,” she whispered. “On the floor.... There....”
He saw something there, blackly outlined, something that sprawled grotesquely, offensively, something that sprawled motionless and horrible. Again he felt the rising of his hair and the chill of dread, and hesitated. Then he forced himself to step forward, to bend over that sprawling black thing, to light a match. As it flamed Hildegarde uttered a faint scream.
The tiny flame threw a fitful, distorting light on the man that lay there; made his features grotesque, appalling. The bulging, staring eyes seemed to be fastened upon Potter’s eyes.
“God!...” he exclaimed. “Your father!”
“My father,” she repeated.
“You were alone with that? Alone in the dark?”
“It was awful!” she whispered.
“He is dead.”
“Dead.”