She spoke softly, tremulously, half in terror at her temerity at talking thus of the dreaded maestro, half with an air of wan appeal.
And with her words, in a sudden flood of horror, the meaning of all that I had seen came clear to my mind. I realized now how this miserable madman, painting formless daubs upon his canvas, was using the life-blood of his victim. With revulsion in my heart, I understood at last the meaning of those ugly brown smears that mingled and predominated among the pigments on the canvas—the dried and faded stains of human blood. And here, sitting close beside me, was the victim of this insane necromancy—the shell of what had once been womanhood—this body of a girl being drained of its life drop by drop.
The girl’s voice brought me back to myself with a start.
“He takes the blood that I have to give, señor—and each day the painting grows more beautiful. He says I am mad that I cannot see its beauty—that the brown I see is not brown, but red—vivid, beautiful red—the red of life itself.
“But you, señor”—she put her hand upon mine; its touch hardly held the warmth of the living—“you, a stranger who, why I know not, comes here to this room—you see, too, the way it looks to me, do you not, señor? Ah, then, indeed I am not mad—and it is he who sees upon the canvas what is not there.”
I was about to answer when dragging footsteps sounded on the stairs; the front door of the room opened and the little old man stood upon the threshold. A look of incredulous astonishment came over his seared yellow face, supplanted in an instant by rage. His lips parted in a snarl.
“Thou, Malella—thou art here in the presence of a stranger?” He spoke in Spanish, his voice vibrating tense with the fierceness of his passion.
The girl turned slowly around on the hassock; the lute slipped from her lap to the floor.
The little old man was coming forward, and the malevolent gleam in his eyes made me leap to my feet.
“Go thou to thy room, Malella—to thy room—at once.”