'"The weather will be broken all day, sir," she said."You had better be going, or your friends will leave without you."'Ere he could answer, he saw such a beseeching glance on the face of the girl, that he hesitated, confused.Glancing at the mother, he saw the flash of wrath in her face.She rose and approached her daughter, with her hand lifted to strike her.The young woman stooped her head with a cry.He darted round the table to interpose between them.But the mother had caught hold of her; the handkerchief had fallen from her neck; and the youth saw five blue bruises on her lovely throat--the marks of the four fingers and the thumb of a left hand.With a cry of horror he rushed from the house, but as he reached the door he turned.His hostess was lying motionless on the floor, and a huge gray wolf came bounding after him.'
An involuntary cry from Mysie interrupted the story-teller.He changed his tone at once.
'I beg your pardon, Miss Lindsay, for telling you such a horrid tale.Do forgive me.I didn't mean to frighten you more than a little.'
'Only a case of lycanthropia,' remarked Mr.Lindsay, as coolly as if that settled everything about it and lycanthropia, horror and all, at once.
'Do tell us the rest,' pleaded Mysie, and Ericson resumed.
'There was no weapon at hand; and if there had been, his inborn chivalry would never have allowed him to harm a woman even under the guise of a wolf.Instinctively, he set himself firm, leaning a little forward, with half outstretched arms, and hands curved ready to clutch again at the throat upon which he had left those pitiful marks.But the creature as she sprang eluded his grasp, and just as he expected to feel her fangs, he found a woman weeping on his bosom, with her arms around his neck.The next instant, the gray wolf broke from him, and bounded howling up the cliff.Recovering himself as he best might, the youth followed, for it was the only way to the moor above, across which he must now make his way to find his companions.
'All at once he heard the sound of a crunching of bones--not as if a creature was eating them, but as if they were ground by the teeth of rage and disappointment: looking up, he saw close above him the mouth of the little cavern in which he had taken refuge the day before.Summoning all his resolution, he passed it slowly and softly.From within came the sounds of a mingled moaning and growling.
'Having reached the top, he ran at full speed for some distance across the moor before venturing to look behind him.When at length he did so he saw, against the sky, the girl standing on the edge of the cliff, wringing her hands.One solitary wail crossed the space between.She made no attempt to follow him, and he reached the opposite shore in safety.'
Mysie tried to laugh, but succeeded badly.Robert took his violin, and its tones had soon swept all the fear from her face, leaving in its stead a trouble that has no name--the trouble of wanting one knows not what--or how to seek it.
It was now time to go home.Mysie gave each an equally warm good-night and thanks, Mr.Lindsay accompanied them to the door, and the students stepped into the moonlight.Across the links the sound of the sea came with a swell.
As they went down the garden, Ericson stopped.Robert thought he was looking back to the house, and went on.When Ericson joined him, he was pale as death.
'What is the maitter wi' ye, Mr.Ericson?' he asked in terror.
'Look there!' said Ericson, pointing, not to the house, but to the sky.
Robert looked up.Close about the moon were a few white clouds.
Upon these white clouds, right over the moon, and near as the eyebrow to an eye, hung part of an opalescent halo, bent into the rude, but unavoidable suggestion of an eyebrow; while, close around the edge of the moon, clung another, a pale storm-halo.To this pale iris and faint-hued eyebrow the full moon itself formed the white pupil: the whole was a perfect eye of ghastly death, staring out of the winter heaven.The vision may never have been before, may never have been again, but this Ericson and Robert saw that night.