III

III

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 midair. 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 Afreet 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.