“But we don't know anyone by the name of Helen——”
Lavinia stopped and began to look at me through narrowed lids much as she had done in the library the evening before.
And then from different parts of the room other manipulators began to report. Every plagued one of those five Ouija boards was calling me by name! I felt my ears grow crimson, purple, maroon. My wife was looking at me as though I were some peculiar insect. The squeak of Ouija boards and the murmur of conversation rose louder and louder, and then I felt my face twitch in the spasm of that idiotic grin. I tried to straighten my wretched features into their usual semblance of humanity, I tried and——
“Doesn't he look sly!” said Miss Hinkle. And then I got up and fled from the room.
I do not know how that party ended. I do not want to know. I went straight upstairs, and undressed and crawled into bed, and lay there in the burning dark while the last guest gurgled in the hall below about the wonderful evening she had spent. I lay there while the front door shut after her, and Lavinia's steps came up the stairs and—passed the door to the guest room beyond. And then after a couple of centuries elapsed the clock struck three and I dozed off to sleep.
At the breakfast table the next morning there was no sign of my wife. I concluded she was sleeping late, but Gladolia, upon being questioned, only shook her head, muttered something, and turned the whites of her eyes up to the ceiling. I was glad when the meal was over and hurried to the library for another try at that story.
I had hardly seated myself at the desk when there came a tap at the door and a white slip of paper slid under it. I unfolded it and read:
“Dear John,
“I am going back to my grandmother. My lawyer will communicate with you later.”
“Oh,” I cried. “Oh, I wish I was dead!”