_IV._
Explain it how you will, I knew that somewhere far back in that
prehistoric time, Toi Wah had snatched away my first-born before my
tortured eyes and that his tender flesh had filled a sabre-toothed
tiger’s maw.
Now had come the day of my revenge! I clutched the poker more firmly in
my hands. I stood and seized her by the collar that none of us had been
able to unfasten. It came off in my hand!
Wonderingly, I looked at it, then cast it aside, to think no more of the
curious antique until....
I was in haste to rid myself of this thing of hate and dread. My heart
leaped. I ground my teeth in an ecstasy of joy; my cheeks burned. A
feeling of well-being and power made my whole body glow....
I left her there, at last, on the blood-stained floor, a broken dead
thing, and went out and locked the door after me.
I was free at last! Free from the fear of claws and teeth in my quivering
throat. Free from the sound of softly-padding feet. I was a new man,
indeed, for there sloughed from me all the old timidity and lack of
aggressiveness that this fear of Toi Wah had engendered in me. I went
from my grandmother’s house to college, a man among men....
I did not return again to the house of my inheritance until I brought
my bride—a shy, soft, fluffy little thing a lovely contrast to the
aggressive type of modern woman.
She was an old-world Eastern type, the daughter of a returned Chinese
missionary, educated in the Orient, and she had the manners and had
absorbed the ideals of the soft-voiced, secluded, home-loving Chinese
women among whom she had been reared.
Her light brown eyes and yellow hair, her slow, undulating graceful
walk, and her quaint old-fashioned ways attracted me; and after a short,
impetuous wooing we were wed.
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.”
“But why did you look at me so?” she insisted. “Surely something has gone
amiss. Aren’t the servants coming? If they are not, I am not entirely
useless; I can even cook,” and she laughed again, an embarrassed laugh I
thought.
She had the manner of having been surprised by my entrance, of being
detected in something, secret or hidden, which she was now trying to
cover up and conceal.
“Why,” I stammered confusedly, for this remarkable resemblance had thrown
me quite off my feet, “nothing is wrong. Only I was suddenly struck,
as you stood there by the portrait of my grandmother’s cat, by the
remarkable resemblance; your hair, your eyes—the same color. That was
all.”
“Why, Robert!” she laughed, holding up an admonishing finger.
This time I was sure of the note of confusion in her laugh, which seemed
forced. My wife was not given to laughter, being a quiet, self-contained
sort of person.
“Imagine! I, like a cat!”
“Well,” I said lightly, gathering her in my arms—for I, too, was
dissembling, now that I had regained my self-possession and saw that I
was betraying my secret fear—“Toi Wah was a very beautiful and high-bred
cat. Her ancestry dated back to Ghengis Khan. So to resemble her would
not be so bad, would it?” And I kissed her.
Did she shrink from the caress? Did her body tremble in my arms? Or was
it imagination, the stirring of old memories of Toi Wah, who shrank from
my lightest touch?
I did not know. I do know, however, that my strange experience on that
day was the beginning of the end; the end that is not yet, but is swiftly
on the way—for me!
_V._
As the day wore on, I grew restless and uneasy; ill at ease and
dissatisfied.
So after dinner I went for a long walk along the country roads. When I
returned my wife was asleep. I lay down softly beside her, and, tired out
by my long walk, was soon asleep myself.
Asleep, I dreamed. Dreamed of Toi Wah and Toi Wah’s kitten. And I heard
again, in my sleep, the plaintive cry of the cat mother as she called
anxiously and lovingly for her kitten that would never return.
So vivid and so real was the dream that I awoke with a cry of the cat in
my ears. And as I awoke, I seemed to hear it again—plaintive, subdued, a
half-cat, half-human cry, as if a woman had cried aloud and then quickly
suppressed the cry.
And my wife was gone!
I sprang up hastily. The moonlight was streaming through the window. It
was almost as light as day. She was nowhere in the room.
I went swiftly down the hall and descended the stairs, making no noise
with my bare feet. The door of my grandmother’s room was open. I looked
in. Two luminous eyes, with a greenish tinge, glowed out at me from the
semi-darkness of the far corner.
For an instant my heart stood still, and then raced palpitatingly on. I
took a deep breath and went toward the unknown thing with glowing eyes
that crouched in that corner.
As I reached the pool of moonlight in the center of the room, I heard a
gasp of fear, a sudden movement, and my wife fled past me, out of the
room and up the stairs.