"The book?" I gasped, against my better judgment.
"The book was the weapon."
"No, or you would not have offered it to me."
"Coward, believe so. Hug the belief while you may. The offer is past."
Past? A madness of bafflement and frustrated curiosity gripped and shook me.
"I take the offer," I cried in passion and defiance. "If there is such a book, show it to me!"
The Thing was gone. Light quietly filled the lamps—or was it that I had opened my eyes? I gripped the arms of my chair, waiting. For what? I did not know. Only, all the horror I ever had felt in the presence of the Thing was slight compared to the fear that presently began to flow upon me as an icy current. There in the pleasantly lighted room, alone, I sank through depths of dread, down into an abyss of despair, down——
A long sigh of rising wind passed through the house like a sucked breath of triumph. Windows and doors drew in and out against their frames with a rattling crash, then hung still with unnatural abruptness. Absolute stillness succeeded. I felt a very slight shock, as if the ground at my feet was struck.
I fled from the terror for the first time. Yes, coward at last, deserter from that unseen Frontier's defense, I found myself in the hall outside my room, leaning sick and faint against the wall. Behind me the door shut violently, yet I felt no current of air to move it.
From the other side of the house there sounded the click of latch, then a patter of soft-shod feet. Phillida came hurrying down the hall toward me. She was wrapped in some silky pink-flowered garment. Her short hair stood out around her head like a little girl's well-brushed crop. She presented as endearingly natural a figure, I thought, as any man could seek or imagine. The wisdom of Ethan Vere who had garnered his love here!