“I?—below stairs? Why, Robert, what is wrong with you? I just this moment awoke from a sound sleep to let you in. How could I be below stairs?”
“But the bedroom door was locked!” I exclaimed.
“You must have gone below yourself,” she explained, “and shut the door after you. It has a spring lock. You surely must have had some hideous dream. Dear, come to bed now.” And she went back to bed.
Again I dissembled as I had that day when I found her standing before Toi Wah’s portrait. I knew, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she was lying. I knew I had been fully awake and in my right senses when I had gone down stairs and found her there. Evidently she desired to deceive me, and until I could fathom her motive I would pretend to believe her. So, muttering something to the effect that she must be right, I got into bed also.
But not to sleep. There came trooping into my harried mind all the old youthful terrors of the dark, and I lived over all those terror-haunted days when I dwelt in fear of Toi Wah or of a shadowy something, I knew not what.
Lying there in the dark, I resolved that morning would find me leaving that seemingly ghost-ridden place forever. My peace of mind, my happiness, to be free from fear—these things were worth all the fine old country places in the world. And with this resolution, I slept.
I slept far into the day, awaking at noon to find my wife had gone out with some of our neighbors for a game of tennis and afternoon tea. So, clearly, I could not arrange to leave until the next day. I must await my wife’s return, and in the meantime formulate some sort of reasonable excuse to explain to her my precipitate return to town, after planning a year’s sojourn in the country.
And then, too, it was daylight now, sober matter-of-fact daylight, and, as was always the case with me, the terrors of the night then seemed unreal, half forgotten nightmares. So I dismissed the subject from my mind for the time being, and set out for a long walk across the fields.
It was near dinner time when I returned. As I opened the door of the dining-room, my wife turned from where she stood by the fire-place to greet me, and I was again struck by her resemblance to Toi Wah. The arrangement of her hair heightened this effect. And when she smiled!—I cannot describe it! Such a sly, secret, feline smile!
“Robert,” she said, as she came to me and put up her lips to be kissed. “Do you know what day this is?”