Then one clear
line came:--
The hare, in spite of fur, was very cold.
The head, moving machine-like, turned right to the advertisement where
the Blaudett's Cathedral pastille reeked abominably. He grunted, and went
on:--
Incense in a censer--
Before her darling picture framed in gold--
Maiden's picture--angel's portrait--
"Hsh!" said Mr. Cashell guardedly from the inner office, as though in the
presence of spirits. "There's something coming through from somewhere; but
it isn't Poole." I heard the crackle of sparks as he depressed the keys of
the transmitter. In my own brain, too, something crackled, or it might
have been the hair on my head. Then I heard my own voice, in a harsh
whisper: "Mr. Cashell, there is something coming through here, too. Leave
me alone till I tell you."
"But I thought you'd come to see this wonderful thing--Sir," indignantly
at the end.
"Leave me alone till I tell you. Be quiet."
I watched--I waited. Under the blue-veined hand--the dry hand of the
consumptive--came away clear, without erasure:
And my weak spirit fails To think how the dead must freeze--
he shivered as he wrote--
Beneath the churchyard mould.
Then he stopped, laid the pen down, and leaned back.
For an instant, that was half an eternity, the shop spun before me in a
rainbow-tinted whirl, in and through which my own soul most
dispassionately considered my own soul as that fought with an over-
mastering fear.
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