To Robert it was the veritable entrance to the dragon's cave. On one side of it everything was dim and quiet. And then it swung back, and you fell through into the dragon's clutches. You heard the awful roar, and your heart fainted within you,
He fell over the top step. He felt he was going to be sick again. It was the old, familiar sound. He had heard it so often, it was so much part of his daily life that it ought not to have frightened him. But it was always new, always more terrifying. Each time it had new notes of incalculable menace. It was like a brutal hammer, crashing down on bruised flesh and shrinking, quivering nerves, never quite killing you, but with each blow leaving you less capable of endurance.
His father, Christine and Edith were in the dining-room. Robert knew they were all there, though he could not see them. The dining-room door at the end of the unlit passage stood half open, showing the handsome mahogany sideboard and the two Chippendale chairs on either side guarding it like lions. They had a curious tense, still look, as though what they saw in the hidden side of the room struck them stiff with astonishment and horror.
Dr. Stonehouse was speaking. His voice was so low-pitched that Robert could not hear what he said. It was like the murderous, meaningless growling of a mad dog; every now and then it seemed to break free—to explode into a shattering roar—and then with a frightful effort to be dragged back, held down, in order that it might leap out again with a redoubled violence. It was punctuated by the sharp, spiteful smack of a fist brought down into the open hand.
Edith whined and once Christine spoke, her clear still voice patient and resolute.
Robert crouched where he had fallen. The baize door swung back, and touched him very softly like a hand out of the dark. It comforted him. It reminded him that he had only to choose, and it would stand between him and this threatening terror—that it would give him time to rush back down the stone stairs—out into the street—further and further till they would never find him again. But he could not move. He couldn't leave Christine like that. His heart was sick with pity for her. Why did his father speak to her like that? Didn't he see how good and faithful she was? Didn't he know that he, Robert, his son, had no one else in the whole world?
His father was speaking more clearly—shouting each word by itself.
"You understand what I say, Christine. Either you do what I tell you, or you get out of here; and, by God, this time you shan't come back. You'll never set eyes on him again."
"I shall always take care of Robert. I promised Constance when she was dying. She begged of me——"
"It's a lie—a damned lie! You're not fit to have control over my son.
You can't be trusted. You're a bad friend——"
"I have done all I can. I have told you there is only one thing left—to sell this house—start afresh."
"Very well, then. That's your last word—and mine."
Suddenly it was still. The stillness was more terrible than anything Robert had ever heard. He gulped and turned like a small, panic-stricken animal. At the bottom of the stairs against the light from the kitchen he could see the bailiff's bulky, honest shadow.
"Look 'ere, little mister, what's wrong up there? Anything I can do——"
The silence was gone. It was broken by the overturning of a chair, by a quiet, sinister scuffling—Edith's voice whining, terrified, thrilled by a silly triumph.
"Don't—don't, Jim. Remember yourself——"
The door was dashed open, and something fell across the light, and there was Christine huddled beneath the sideboard, her head resting against its cruel corner. Her face was towards Robert. He was not to forget it so long as he lived. It was so white and still, so angerless.
His paralysing terror was gone. He leapt to his feet. He raced down the passage, flinging himself on his father, beating him with his fists, shrieking:
"You devil—you devil!"
After that ho did not know what happened. He seemed to be enveloped in a cloud of struggling figures. He heard the bailiff's voice booming, "Come now, sir, this won't do; I am surprised at a gentleman like you!" and his father's answer, incoherent, shaken with rage and shame. Then he must have found his way upstairs. He never remembered how he got there, but he was lying in his bed, in all his clothes, his head hidden beneath the blankets, twitching from head to foot as though his body had gone mad.
Downstairs the lock of the front door clicked. There was something steadfast and reassuring in the sound, as though it were trying to send a message. "Don't worry, I shall come back." But Robert could not feel or care any more. He was struggling with his body as a helpless rider struggles with a frantic runaway horse. He found out for the first time that his body wasn't himself at all. It was something else. It did what it wanted to. He could only cling on to it for dear life. But gradually it seemed to weaken, to yield to his exhausted efforts at control, and at last lay stretched out, relaxed, drenched with an icy sweat. The real himself sank into seas of darkness from which convulsive, tearing shudders, less and less frequent, dragged him, with throbbing heart and starting eyes, back to the surface.
His bandage had slipped off. He held it tight between his hands. He was too numb and stupefied even to think of Francey, but there was magic in that dirty, blood-stained handkerchief. It might have been a saint's relic, or a Red Indian's totem, preserving him from evil. He knew nothing about saints or totems, but he knew that Francey was good and stronger than any of them.
Downstairs the silence remained unbroken. It was an aghast silence, heavy with remorse and shame and self-loathing. It was like the thick dregs lying at the bottom of the cup. But to Robert it was just silence. He sank into it, deeper and deeper, until he slept.
He began to dream. The dreams walked about inside his brain, and were red-coloured as though they were lit up by the glow of a hidden furnace. All the people who took part in them came and went in great haste. Or they made up hurried tableaux—Francey holding the stick and looking at him in white anger, Christine huddled on the floor, his father black and monstrous towering over her. Finally, they all disappeared together, and Robert knew that it was because the Dragon had woken up and was coming to devour them. He was climbing up from the dining-room. Robert heard his tread on the stairs—heavy, stumbling footsteps such as one would expect from a dragon on a narrow, twisting staircase. They came nearer and nearer, and with every thud Robert seemed to be lifted with a jerk from the depths in which he was lying, and to be aware of his body stiffening in terror.
Then at the last step the Dragon fell, and Robert was awake. He sat bolt upright. There had been no mistaking that dull thump. It lingered in his ears like the echo of a thunder-clap. The Dragon had fallen and killed himself, for he did not move. It was pitch dark in the room, but very slowly and quietly, under the pressure of an invisible hand, the door opposite his bed began to open. The light outside made a widening slit in the darkness. It was like sitting in a theatre watching the curtain go up on a nightmare. He could see the banisters, the glow from the hall beneath, and something black with a white smudge at the end of it lying stretched out from the head of the stairs. His body crawled out of bed. He himself wanted to hide under the clothes, but his body would not let him. It carried him on against his will. When he was near enough he saw that the long black thing was a man's arm and the white smudge a hand, clenched and inert, on the red carpet. His body tottered out on the landing. It was his father lying stretched on the stairs, face downwards.
He tried to scream, but his throat and tongue were dry and swollen. Nor could he touch that still thing, in its passivity more terrible than in its violence. He was afraid that every moment it would lift its face, and show him some new unthinkable horror. He skirted it as though it might leap upon him and devour him, and rushed downstairs, faster and faster, with a thousand devils hunting at his heels.
And then he seemed again to be dreaming. The bailiff ran up from the kitchen in his shirt-sleeves, and he and Edith went up the stairs together, leaving him alone in the library. The fire had gone out, but he cowered up against the