But the deep silence held. I only heard my
sister's little whisper coming across the room in answer to my question:
"Then what is Mabel doing now?"
And her reply proved that she was yielding at last beneath the dreadful
tension, for she spoke at once, unable longer to keep up the pretence.
With a kind of relief, as it were, she said it out, looking helplessly
at me like a child:
"She is weeping and gna--"
My expression must have stopped her. I believe I clapped both hands upon
her mouth, though when I realized things clearly again, I found they
were covering my own ears instead. It was a moment of unutterable
horror. The revulsion I felt was actually physical. It would have given
me pleasure to fire off all the five chambers of my pistol into the air
above my head; the sound--a definite, wholesome sound that explained
itself--would have been a positive relief. Other feelings, though, were
in me too, all over me, rushing to and fro. It was vain to seek their
disentanglement; it was impossible. I confess that I experienced, among
them, a touch of paralyzing fear--though for a moment only; it passed as
sharply as it came, leaving me with a violent flush of blood to the face
such as bursts of anger bring, followed abruptly by an icy perspiration
over the entire body.
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