In his study Dreeme turned the pages of the book impatiently. Finally
he closed it and placed it upon the table. He would think. He wondered
if he ever stopped thinking, if, indeed, his cerebral efforts were ever
more than an ineffectual attempt. The clock struck nine and he noted it
automatically. Another day had fled by. A day of excitement and terror
and perplexity. He sat desolately and watched the yellow flame of the
lamp as it sputtered despondently. The chimney was soot-stained. Mrs.
Slater should clean it. There was small reason to think when he could
find no answers to his thoughts. Perhaps Humphrey Lathrop was right,
after all. If he had troubled his mind about nothing his mind would not
be troubling him so fiercely as it undoubtedly was now. Perhaps the
time had come for him to pack his books, his trunk, and his bags, and
take his way eastward out of the valley, leaving the dour natives to
live their lives in their own way and to continue to clutch the mystery
that permeated the community to their secretive bosoms. Why should
he stay here where he was a barely-tolerated stranger and prescribe
cures for unthankful patients who viewed even his ministrations with
suspicion? It was no career for a young man. The rewards could be
counted neither in money nor in friendships. He was a fool, an infernal
fool.
And thinking these thoughts he reached a hand to pick up his book but
paused, the hand poised in mid-air. She had asked him to come to the
burned mill again that night. During the troublous surprises of the day
he had forgotten all about it. It was inconceivable to imagine that
she would appear after the unusual happenings of the day, happenings
that had touched her so closely. Was she not sitting in her room,
understanding, perhaps, why Wagner had been killed? Dreeme shuddered
at the approach of the thought which he had kept so resolutely out of
his mind. To go to the burned mill now would be a very fool’s errand.
He would find nothing there but blackened bricks and charred beams and
the disturbed dust where he had sat in the broken embrasure with her
and watched her obvious efforts to entangle him. He had even told her
that he would not come, told her so brusquely and with no pity for her
demands. What had she said to him? “I will tell you a great many things
tomorrow night.” What had she meant by that? What was she driving at,
anyway? His hand dropped to his lap and he sat gazing vacantly at the
yellow lamp-flame.
The first time he had seen her, she had fascinated him. He supposed
that was the word for it. Anyway, he had felt her presence, had sensed
the magnetic appeal of her power, the outrageous suggestion of her
will. Nature had endowed her with certain unusual attributes and
chief among them was this curious power of disturbing the rational
equilibrium of the men about her. She was sly and skillful in her
amoral way, determined to have what she wanted regardless of the
consequences. There might be some things to be said on her side,
particularly by the special pleader who, dominated by her undoubted
beauty, perished in the spell of her personality. But Dreeme knew
that she could not dominate him in this way although at the first she
had disturbed him greatly. Even now he knew that he would be visibly
excited in her presence. The man in him would tremble before the
woman in her. She could not touch his brain, though, for that was an
insuperable bulwark between them. It was his stout shield of defence
and beat upon it as she might with the sharp sword of her loveliness
she could not hack her way through. She was like the beautiful and
heartless wife of the Afrit in the Arabian Nights, the one who
possessed the vast number of rings, each one a souvenir of a time when
she had betrayed her sleeping lord. Well, _he_ would not be a
victim. No ring of his should join that glittering and invisible chain
that he suspected Martha Westcott wore about her white throat. He was
safeguarded from her by a welling desire that rose in his heart, by
a desire that he knew would keep him in Marlborough until the time
came when he might go away not alone. A shadow of dim light, the shy
reflection of crystal, stood near him now and his eyes brightened as
his thoughts shifted.
He had helped _her_ anyway. He had stood between her and the
callousness of her reticent relations, between her and the despairing
selfishness of her helpless aunt. She had wanted to bury her on a
lonely farm, to engulf her in the very mystery that tormented all his
faculties. He wondered if she was sleeping now in the house next door,
lying with one thin pathetic white arm stretched across the bright
patches of the crazyquilt and dreaming, perhaps, of him. Dreeme smiled
at the yellow lamp-flame. He was growing sentimental. Her confident
helplessness, her blue-eyed surrender to circumstances, her ultimate
faith in the goodness of humanity, her unquestioning dependence on
him, all these things touched him acutely. He felt his eyes grow moist
at the thought of her. She, at least, was real. He had said that to
himself before and he would say it again and again for it gave him a
strange strength. She counted and made the whole thing worth while. He
could depend on her as she depended on him. He would constitute himself
her champion, the fighter who would stand between her and ... Dagon.
The name sprang spontaneously into his mind. “Dagon,” he said aloud,
listening to the sound of the word in the little study. “Dagon.” It
meant something. It was a place.
His mind turned back. “I will tell you a great many things tomorrow
night.” Did she mean anything, after all, by that statement? Or
was it merely a snare, a bait to inveigle him back to a rendezvous
that he found in itself distasteful? Would she, for instance, tell
him about Dagon, describe it to him, indicate where it was, explain
what it meant? If pushed to a last extremity of desire she might. He
flushed at the thought of so befooling her. Still.... He was fighting
with whatever weapons he could grasp. If only.... The clock noisily
announced nine-thirty. Of course, she would not be there. She would
never dare to come after what had happened the night before. Go ...
stay ... go ... stay. The clock was ticking it now. Still undecided he
rose up and reached for his hat. It would do no harm to take a walk
anyway, to stroll in the cool of the evening as the Reverend George
Burroughs would say. Dagon ... Dagon. He closed the door softly behind
him and stood in the moonlight.