"Mother Kyle! What do you mean?"
"Latham will tell you," she said, "if your own strange blood hasn't
written it on your soul!"
"Where's the doctor?"
Her white head jerked sharply.
"Latham's still at work," she told me, "in his study in the attic.
He's busy on his great book."
"His book?" I said, wondering.
"He is writing a history of the demonolatries of Creston."
"I want to talk to him right away."
"You can see him after supper." Her thin nose jerked at me
emphatically, like the beak of a bird. "He'll give you reason enough
why you can't marry Valyne, and drag her soul to hell!"
Valyne rescued me from her cackling strangeness, and led me up to my
old room.
There I met the two servants of the house. They, Eben Hand and his wife
Josepha, were setting up my bedstead.
Eben Hand was a fat, panting man. There was no color in his blond hair,
his vague pale eyes, or his pasty skin. Mute, he expressed himself very
swiftly to his wife with white, pliable fat hands.
She was a big, dark woman. Her eyes were wide and sharp and black. Her
raven hair was coiled into glistening, oily ropes. Her upper lip bore a
thick, dark fuzz. She was doing the most of the work, issuing commands
to her silent husband in a coarse, mannish voice.
She bowed to me, oddly, as I entered with Valyne and set down my light
bag. Her dark avid eyes remained fastened on my face, while she told
her husband:
"Eben, this is Clay. Ye remember little Claiborne Coe, Eben, that used
to run through the village. Well, this is him, come back to take our
Valyne away. Clay got rich, Eben, in them furrin parts!"
At that last sentence, Eben Hand's small, pale eyes shifted suddenly
from his wife to me. They searched my person, and seized upon my modest
gold ring. His white fingers made some swift, covert reply.
When they had gone, I said to Valyne:
"I don't like them--or this house! Can't we stay somewhere else,
tonight?"
"There's no hotel in Creston," she told me. "And it would look strange
if we went away tonight. Besides, you must stay to talk with Doctor
Kyle. I promised him."
But even the electric warmth of her kiss couldn't thaw out the chill of
my forebodings.
* * * * *
Doctor Kyle came down at last from his attic room.
He was a big man. Although his body and his limbs remained massively
powerful, his head had become curiously fleshless. His yellow cheeks
were hollow, his dark flaming eyes were very deeply sunken. His head
had become almost completely bald, so that it gave the disconcerting
impression of a yellowed skull.
We met at the foot of the stairs. His hand was very cold, as if he had
been working too long without a fire in his attic study.
No smile broke the solemn preoccupation of his cadaverous face.
"You are welcome to your old home, Clay," said his deep, hollow
voice. "I'm very glad to see you, but"--his shrunken face changed
curiously--"I had hoped that you would heed the warning of my letter,
and never come for Valyne."
"I have come for her," I told him bluntly. "And I'm going to take her
away, in spite of anything you tell me."
His gaunt head shook.
"Clay," he said, "you were always queer and reckless. But I know that
you aren't reckless, madly selfish, enough to drag Valyne away to a
living hell! Not after you have heard; for there must be one drop of
human blood left in your veins!"
[Illustration: "I know that you aren't madly selfish enough to drag
Valyne to a living hell."]
"Of course I wouldn't hurt Valyne," I told him. "Go ahead and tell me;
I've had enough vague hints."
But Josepha Hand was setting supper on the table, and Valyne came
toward us at the foot of the stair.
"Doctor," she said, smiling, "you've worked too late again! You know
you shouldn't----"
Her light voice was swept away by his hissing whisper:
"Later, Clay. But it is a crime that God forbids!"
Valyne caught his arm, and mine, and drew us toward the table.
Sitting beside Valyne, so that sometimes my arm touched the firm warmth
of hers, I wondered vainly what he could have to say. What demoniac
purpose sought to bar me from her? What eldritch madness lurked in this
ancient house?
As we ate, the man Eben Hand appeared suddenly in a doorway. He looked
disturbed, his white hands fluttered agitatedly at his wife. And she
called in a tone of startled dread:
"Doctor! You must go, Doctor! He can't get it quiet!"
Doctor Kyle's yellow, tight-skinned face grew a little paler. He rose
hastily and followed Eben Hand through the doorway which, I remembered,
led to the cellar stair.
Silently, the doctor's toothless, wrinkled wife watched the door with
her too-bright eyes. She listened. Presently we heard a sound from
below. It was a low scream--of tortured, animal agony.
When she heard it, Sarah Kyle relaxed as if with relief. Her bright
eyes came back to the table; her brown, claw-like hands buttered a
piece of bread. Her thin voice asked me:
"Clay, what business was ye in, in China?"
"One and another," I told her, absently. "The last was copper and tin,
in the province of Szechwan."