Half-past twelve! It would be half-past six in the ordinary course of events when Agnes would descend to dust the first floor and set the breakfast table. Six hours to wait! Three hundred and sixty slow, dragging minutes! How could he ever live through them? How did the condemned spend the last hours before the end? He had read, marveling, that some hardy criminals slept unconcernedly, some raved, some prayed . . . .
God, why did such hideous thoughts intrude themselves now? He would never stand in their shoes, no breath of suspicion would ever approach him; he had laid his plans too well, had fortified himself against any contingency which might arise. The scene had been perfectly staged with not a detail missing to break the continuity of the version of what had occurred which must impress itself upon those who would view it.
Crossing the room, he seated himself on the side of the bed and lighted a cigarette. He could keep the light going a little longer without occasioning remark should one of the maids wake up, for he had often read until past one. He must not overdo it, though; he must not overdo anything. That would be the one great danger; he must hold himself impervious against self-betrayal.
He smoked cigarette after cigarette until a single stroke tinkled from the little clock, and, rousing himself from his reverie, Storm reached over and extinguished the lamp. The darkness seemed sinister, overwhelming, but as his eyes gradually accustomed themselves to it he saw pale, silvery moonbeams creeping in between the slats of the shutters, lying in shimmering bars across the floor and lightening the gloom with a faint, almost spiritual effulgence. The stillness of the night, too, was all at once broken by a myriad sounds which had not penetrated his consciousness before: strange creaks and groans in the walls as though something invisible were abroad, sibilant whispers in the chimney and the liquid, monotonous tap of water dripping from the faucet in the bathroom. Outside, the wind blew gustily, and somewhere about the house a loose shutter banged with a dismal, hollow sound.
What a hideous thing night was! There was something about it which loosened a fellow’s thoughts, freed them from his stern control and let them wander where they would, unrestrained. Only one other such vigil had Storm kept: that of the crisis in Leila’s desperate illness after their marriage. Every hour of it was branded on his brain, every detail arose again to attack his senses: the pungent, penetrating odor of carbolic, that strange, high voice which babbled and was still, the white-clad nurse, gravely noncommittal, shutting the door behind which he might not pass, the taste of his own blood as he caught his lip between his teeth to keep back the groan of utter despair.
The night then had seemed interminable, but in the end had come the glorious promise that she would live! Now the dawn would bring only tidings of death, but he would not call her back again if he could; would not undo what he had done even if it lay in his power. His Leila had never existed; the pedestal was empty, that was all!
Gad, if only he could smoke! His nerves shrieked for the solace of nicotine, but he dared not light another cigarette. The smoke curling up from his opened window to that of one of the maids upstairs would tell her, should she also be awake, that her master was keeping vigil there in the darkness alone. She would think nothing of it now, perhaps, but later when the discovery was made she might wonder. He must manage, somehow, to get through the night without even the slight comfort that he craved!
With a whirring of soft wings, some tiny creature of the night came and beat upon the shutter, and Storm started violently. The bars of moonlight had traveled a barely perceptible inch or two across the floor, and from the distance there came the crowning note of desolation: the long-drawn, mournful howling of a dog.
Storm shivered. An old superstition which his Irish nurse had instilled into his mind in the nursery days swept over him. A dog’s howl was the sign of death! How could the beast know? In all that sleeping countryside, there was one who shared his vigil, one who raised his voice in warning and lament!
Storm rose and, tiptoeing to the window, opened the shutters wide and fastened them noiselessly back against the house wall while he strained his eyes in the direction from which the dismal baying of the dog rose once more. Was it nearer now? Could it be that the beast, led by some instinct more subtle and unerring than man could fathom, had picked up the scent—the scent of the drifting ashes? Bridget had told him that a dog could sense the presence of death though it were miles away and would come to cry the news of it. What if the creature were to appear suddenly there between the trees and leap across the lawn to crouch beneath the curtained window of the den downstairs and howl its dread message?