I was very happy. Only twenty-four, wealthy, and married to a loving and beautiful girl whom I adored!
I looked forward to a long life of peace and happiness, but it was not to be. From the very day of my return to the accursed house of my grandmother there was a change. What was it? I do not know, but I could feel it. I could sense it, the very first day. A subtle something, a pall of gloom, intangible, elusive and baffling, began slowly to settle over me, stifling and suffocating the happiness that was mine before the evil day of my return home.
I had returned from the village with some trifle of household necessity. The servants had not yet arrived, and the housekeeper, old and infirm now, was busy putting the place in order.
Returning, I sought my wife, and found her in my grandmother’s room, standing before the life-size portrait of Toi Wah, done in oil for my grandmother by a great artist, who also loved cats as she had loved them.
Until that day Toi Wah had remained only a dim memory of a fear-driven boy’s cruel revenge. Purposely, I had put all thought of her out of my mind. But now it all returned, a horde of hateful memories, as I stood there in the open door and saw my wife standing and gazing up at the likeness of the great cat.
And as she turned, startled at my entrance, what did I see?
I saw, or thought I saw, a likeness, a great likeness, between the two! Eyes, hair, the general expression—Why had I not noticed it before!
And what else? In my wife’s eyes was the old fear, the ancient hate, I used to see in Toi Wah’s eyes when I came suddenly into my grandmother’s room—this room! The look flashed out for an instant and was gone.
“How you frightened me, Robert!” she laughed. “And the look in your face! What has happened?”
“Nothing,” I answered. “Nothing at all.”