“In one year, in two, three, a swift pain comes, like a needle, you understand? Perhaps in the foot, in the hand, in the arm. It is exquisite, deathly, while it lasts, but it only lasts for a few moments. It is agony. And then it goes, leaving nothing to show what has caused it. But, my friends, it is a death warning!
“If it comes here”—she raised one delicate white hand—“you may have five years to live; if in the foot, ten, or more. But”—she sank her voice dramatically—“the nearer it is to the heart, the less are the days that remain to you of life.”
“You mean that it recurs?” asked Harley.
“Perhaps in a week, perhaps not for another year, it comes again, that quick agony. This time in the shoulder, in the knee. It is the second warning. Three times it may come, four times, but at last”—she laid her hand upon her breast—“it comes here, in the heart, and all is finished.”
She paused as if exhausted, closing her eyes again, whilst we three who listened looked at one another in an awestricken silence, until the vibrant voice resumed:
“There is only one man in Europe who understands this thing, this Creeping Sickness. He is a Frenchman who lives in Paris. To him Juan had been, and he had told him, this clever man, ‘If you are very quiet and do not exert yourself, and only take as much exercise as is necessary for your general health, you have one year to live—‘”
“My God!” groaned Harley.
“Yes, such was the verdict. And there is no cure. The poor sufferer must wait and wait, always wait, for that sudden pang, not knowing if it will come in his heart and be the finish. Yes. This living death, then, and revenge, were the things ruling Juan’s life at the time of which I tell you. He had traced Ysola de Valera to England. A chance remark in a London hotel had told him that a Chinaman had been seen in a Surrey village and of course had caused much silly chatter. He enquired at once, and he found out that Colin Camber, the man who had taken Ysola from him, was living with her at the Guest House, here, on the hill. How shall I tell you the rest?”
“Merciful Heaven!” exclaimed Harley, his glance set upon her, with a sort of horror in his gray eyes, “I think I can guess.”
She turned to him rapidly.