"For some time I had been sitting alone with these reflections--it may
have been ten minutes or it may have been half an hour--when I was
aroused from my reverie by the knowledge that someone was again in the
room standing close beside my chair. My first thought was that Smith had
come back again in his swift, unaccountable manner, but almost at the
same moment I realised that this could not be the case at all. For the
door faced my position, and it certainly had not been opened again.
"Yet, someone was in the room, moving cautiously to and fro, watching
me, almost touching me. I was as sure of it as I was of myself, and
though at the moment I do not think I was actually afraid, I am bound to
admit that a certain weakness came over me and that I felt that strange
disinclination for action which is probably the beginning of the
horrible paralysis of real terror. I should have been glad to hide
myself, if that had been possible, to cower into a corner, or behind a
door, or anywhere so that I could not be watched and observed.
"But, overcoming my nervousness with an effort of the will, I got up
quickly out of my chair and held the reading lamp aloft so that it shone
into all the corners like a searchlight.
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