His lips moved without
cessation. I stepped nearer to listen. "And threw--and threw--and threw,"
he repeated, his face all sharp with some inexplicable agony.
I moved forward astonished. But it was then he found words--delivered
roundly and clearly. These:--
And threw warm gules on Madeleine's young breast.
The trouble passed off his countenance, and he returned lightly to his
place, rubbing his hands.
It had never occurred to me, though we had many times discussed reading
and prize-competitions as a diversion, that Mr. Shaynor ever read Keats,
or could quote him at all appositely. There was, after all, a certain
stained-glass effect of light on the high bosom of the highly-polished
picture which might, by stretch of fancy, suggest, as a vile chromo
recalls some incomparable canvas, the line he had spoken. Night, my drink,
and solitude were evidently turning Mr. Shaynor into a poet. He sat down
again and wrote swiftly on his villainous note-paper, his lips quivering.
I shut the door into the inner office and moved up behind him. He made no
sign that he saw or heard. I looked over his shoulder, and read, amid
half-formed words, sentences, and wild scratches:--
--Very cold it was. Very cold
The hare--the hare--the hare--
The birds----
He raised his head sharply, and frowned toward the blank shutters of the
poulterer's shop where they jutted out against our window.
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