"And what is this?" indicating the morocco case.
"My diamonds."
"You make them a present to me?"
"Yes."
Sclamowsky opened the case and took out the jewels.
"A handsome present, certainly!" he said, turning to me with a smile.
I was speechless. There was something so horrible in my dear Aunt Phœbe's set face and wide open, stony eyes, something so weird in the dim room, with its one miserable lamp; something so mockingly fiendish in Sclamowsky's glittering eyes as he stood with the diamonds flashing and twinkling in his hands, that though I strove for utterance, I could not succeed in articulating a single word.
"Enough!" at last he said, replacing the diamonds in their case and closing it sharply—"the experiment is concluded," and so saying he stepped up close to Aunt Phœbe and made two or three passes with his hands in front of her face. A quiver ran all over my aunt's figure. She swayed and would have fallen if I had not rushed forward and caught her in my arms.
She looked round at me with terror and bewilderment in every feature.
"Where am I, Elizabeth?" she stammered, and then looking round she caught sight of Sclamowsky. "What is the meaning of this?"