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Blackwood, Algernon, 1869-1951

"The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories"

Something in Garvey's face--something he had
_felt_ before he looked up--stopped his tongue and froze the words in
his throat. His lips refused to move and became suddenly dry. Again the
mist rose before his eyes and the appalling shadow dropped its veil over
the face before him. Garvey's features began to burn and glow. Then they
seemed to coarsen and somehow slip confusedly together. He stared for a
second--it seemed only for a second--into the visage of a ferocious and
abominable animal; and then, as suddenly as it had come, the filthy
shadow of the beast passed off, the mist melted out, and with a mighty
effort over his nerves he forced himself to finish his sentence.
"You see it's so long since I've given attention to such things," he
stammered. His heart was beating rapidly, and a feeling of oppression
was gathering over it.
"It's my peculiar and special study on the other hand," Garvey resumed.
"I've not spent all these years in my laboratory to no purpose, I can
assure you. Nature, I know for a fact," he added with unnatural warmth,
"does _not_ abhor a vacuum.


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