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Blackwood, Algernon, 1869-1951

"The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories"

As through a mask, that
concealed, and yet was thin enough to let through a suggestion of, the
beast crouching behind, there leaped into his countenance the strange
look of the animal in the human--the expression of the were-wolf, the
monster. The change in all its loathsomeness came rapidly over his
features, which began to lose their outline. The nose flattened,
dropping with broad nostrils over thick lips. The face rounded, filled,
and became squat. The eyes, which, luckily for Shorthouse, no longer
sought his own, glowed with the light of untamed appetite and bestial
greed. The hands left the cloth and grasped the edges of the plate, and
then clutched the cloth again.
"This is _my_ course coming now," said Garvey, in a deep guttural voice.
He was shivering. His upper lip was partly lifted and showed the teeth,
white and gleaming.
A moment later the door opened and Marx hurried into the room and set a
dish in front of his master. Garvey half rose to meet him, stretching
out his hands and grinning horribly. With his mouth he made a sound like
the snarl of an animal.


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