But what could that weird Something have been?
Of what evil had Melvill Arnold desired to warn me when he had scrawled those curious final words before expiring?
Chapter Seventeen.
A Further Problem.
I had seen the sign of the Hand against which Melvill Arnold had warned me with final effort before he expired.
I could not close my eyes again. Thoroughly awakened, I lay trying to convince myself that it was but a bad dream. Yet so distinct had been that touch, that I still felt the repulsive contact that had thrilled me and left upon me such a lasting impression.
In the uncertain light of early morning one’s brain is often full of weird fancies, and as I lay there wondering, a thousand curious unreal conjectures floated through my mind.
I was not old, yet in my life I had probably travelled more, and seen more, than most men of my age. Of little love affairs I had had, of course, one or two. None of them had been serious—none, until the present.