skies, as the dance rose wilder and more terrible in that dread orgy where, naked and dreadful, man forgot he was man and made in the likeness of God, and returned, screaming and horribly glad, to his primeval filth…. Now into the inner meaning of “those that commit wickedness in high places”! Trelawney saw unspeakable obscenities, vileness beyond power of human imagination, sin at the mere sight of which his very soul sickened and shrank within him—cowered, shrivelled and whimpering, in the storm of blood and fire and evil unspeakable that swept it. The grind of a car stopping outside broke across the silence, and suddenly, completely, the spell broke, and a livid, shaking Trelawney released his grip of the mantelpiece, and, fumbling for his handkerchief, wiped his wet brow. Yet it was not the old Trelawney—genial, jolly, open-hearted—that peeped between the thick curtains at Miles and Maisie ascending the steps, and, after rummaging in a drawer in the writing table, crouched away behind the thick drapery, one furtive hand clenched about the butt of a revolver.
Laughing and chattering, Maisie came in, untying her grey veil from about her face. The old Trelawney?—Was it the old Maisie who, glancing hurriedly about her, said in a whisper, “It’s all right, darling,” and, turning, held out her arms to Miles?
Trelawney’s fingers clenched tighter, but he forbore—no, let her hang herself completely, damn her, and the fellow, too. Wait—wait—and he’d got ’em both…. Miles, his open brow creased by an anxious little frown, switched on the light and came half-hesitatingly forward.
“Maisie—I don’t know whether I’d better stay. Where’s Jack?”
Ill at ease, vaguely conscience-stricken, he stood, looking down at the girl on the hearthrug; above them the mask grinned as she reached up to put her arms round his neck.
“Jack—Jack—he’s asleep, fed up with me for running away with you, Miles!” she laughed, drawing her slender length up against the soldier’s stalwart frame. Still uneasy, he held her away, frowning, puzzled.
“Wait awhile, May. Look here, old thing, there’s something wrong to-night. I swear there is! You—we never acted like this before … and you know…” The lame sentence was drowned as she laid a slim hand across his mouth and laughed up into his troubled eyes.
“Silly—don’t argue! Now you know you never kissed me yesterday—you stopped half way, you ungallant boy…. Kiss me now, Miles—oh, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me!”
A red flame darted before Trelawney’s eyes as he saw their lips meet in a wildly passionate kiss; with a hoarse laugh of rage that, strangely enough, seemed to be echoed and surrounded by another and a more terrible laugh that seemed to fill and deafen the very air around him, he flung the curtain aside and stood revealed, the revolver levelled in his hand. Even as he pulled the trigger he saw the mask, sharply distinct in the light, its cruel mouth all awry with awful merriment, its blank eyes alight and blazing, watching him.
| · | · | · | · | · |
“Jack! Jack! Jack, dearest—look at me!” Surely it was Maisie’s voice, her old loving, darling voice, shaking with tears and full of love; from a long way off, it seemed to Trelawney, that voice penetrated through a thickness of gloom and dark terror and anguish that had for untold ages hidden him.
With a great effort he opened his eyes, and, blinking up in the strong light, looked straight into his wife’s anxious face and, above it, Miles’ square, honest countenance, fixed in a portentous frown of anxiety. Feebly reaching after memory, Trelawney whispered,
“Maisie—Miles! Why—I thought you—what’s happened? Have I dreamt everything?” He struggled into a sitting position, his head against Maisie’s knees, and on doing so his foot knocked against something, and he glanced down with a sudden cry. The mask lay in pieces on the hearthrug, its evil face twisted and battered out of all recognition. He stretched out a curious hand, but Maisie stopped him with a cry of dismay.
“Don’t, Jack—don’t you touch it again! It’s brought us all three to the brink of the most ghastly mess; leave it there till morning, and the maids shall throw it away, and we’ll forget about it.”
xxiv
