“Merely because of an idea,” I replied; “but pray let Mrs. Fanshawe finish her story, and then, if you like, I will tell you what my idea is.”
“Well,” Mrs. Fanshawe continued, “I haven’t much more to relate. On the night after our maid’s funeral, we were again disturbed by Pat barking. I got up and went to the bedroom window. The weather was very unsettled. Clouds scurried across the moon, that hung like a great silver ball over the St. Lawrence River, which I could see winding its mighty course in the distance; spots of heavy rain were falling, and the wind whistled dolefully through the leaves of the maples.
“The Thing came right up to the window, and then raised its face”
“Suddenly I heard the sound of heavy footsteps crunching their way along the gravel drive. ‘It will be nothing visible,’ I said to myself, and then I got a pretty acute shock. Coming towards the house with short, quick steps was a tall figure, with its head bowed low. Its arms and legs were very long and bony, the feet and hands enormous. It was quite nude, and from all over its body, which was of an exaggerated whiteness, there emanated a strange, phosphorescent glow. I called to Dick, and he at once joined me. The Thing came right up to the window, and then raised its face. If I live to be a thousand years old I shall never forget what I saw. The proportion of the face was not human, and it was partially covered with hair, but the eyes were the same shape as ours, only very much bigger. They were pale, almost white, I thought, and their expression——”
“Don’t talk of it,” Dr. Fanshawe interrupted. “One can only say it was too damnable, too utterly vicious and loathsome for words.”
“We were so overcome,” his wife went on, “that for some seconds neither of us could articulate a syllable. We both stared at it in hideous fascination. At last it made some slight movement, and Dick, released from the spell that held him, fired at it. The bullet must have gone right through it, for we saw the gravel on the path immediately behind it spurt up and scatter. However, the figure was unharmed, and it moved on towards the front door. Dick fired again, but with no better result. A fearful horror now seized us, lest it should get into the house. I am not a religious woman, but I prayed, and as I did so I saw Dick throw something. What he threw seemed to strike the thing full in the face, and it vanished. As we got back into bed, I said to Dick, ‘That was very odd! What did you throw?’”
“‘A stone I picked up near the quarry this morning,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know why I threw it, but directly you started praying, a feeling came over me that I must.’
“We were not disturbed again that night, but slept better than we had done for some time, and in the morning Dick found and showed me the stone—the stone you are looking at now. We had it fixed to the front door, and after that we were not troubled again.”