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Updated: June 25, 2025
For he fixed his eyes on his guest with intense and hard inquiry, and laid his brown hands on the arms of his chair, as if in readiness for something. But he only said: "Well please?" Sir Seymour's inclination was to get up. But he did not obey it. He sat without moving, and returned Arabian's stare with a firm, soldier's gaze. The fearlessness of his eyes was absolute, unflinching.
But you shall have another chance, and lying is very easy, even when the nerves are over-wrought. You will do better the next time. The voice was like Keyork Arabian's. Unstrung, almost forgetting all, she wondered vaguely at the sound, for it was a real sound and a real voice to her. Was her soul his, indeed, and was he drawing it on slowly, surely to the end? Had he been behind her last night?
She did not come back till late, and when she entered the hall she was unusually pale, and looked both tired and excited. She had been to Dick Garstin on an unpleasant errand, and she had failed in achieving what she had attempted to bring about. Garstin had flatly refused not to exhibit Arabian's portrait. And she had been obliged to tell Arabian of his refusal.
Her eyes fell on it against her will, and she saw there were four printed words on it. On Arabian's card there were only two: Nicolas Arabian. Instantly she stretched out her hand and took the card up "General Sir Seymour Portman." Her relief was so great that she could not conceal it. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Ma'am?" said the boy, looking more official. "Please run down " "Run ma'am?"
Almost before it had stopped, the door opened and Keyork Arabian's short, heavy form emerged and descended hastily to the pavement. He rang the bell furiously, and the old portress set the gate ajar and looked out cautiously, fearing that the noisy peal meant trouble or disturbance. "The lady Beatrice Varanger I must see her instantly!" cried the little man in terrible excitement.
But as though her unhappy fate were for ever fighting against her good impulses, that power of hers had exerted itself unconsciously, since her resolution had been formed. Keyork Arabian's words, and his evident though unspoken disbelief in her denial, showed that he at least was convinced of the fact that the Wanderer was not sleeping a natural sleep.
And then he told her of the outrage in the studio. When he was silent she made a slight swaying movement and took hold of the mantelpiece. He saw by her face that she had grasped at once what Arabian's action implied. Flight! "You see he's done with. We've done with the fellow!" he said at last as she did not speak. "Yes." Her face, when not interfered with, was always pale.
She longed but to hear one honest word, not of hope, but of encouragement, but one word in contrast to those hideous whispered promptings that had come to her in Keyork Arabian's voice. How could she trust herself alone? Her evil deeds were many so many, that, although she had turned at last against them, she could not tell where to strike.
There could be no doubt that in the man's enormous self-estimation, the Supreme Power occupied a place secondary to Keyork Arabian's personality, and hostile to it. And he had taken up arms, as Lucifer, assuming his individual right to live in spite of God, Man and Nature, convinced that the secret could be discovered and determined to find it and to use it, no matter at what price.
It was clear that every one of the specimens illustrated some point in the great question of life and death which formed the chief study of Keyork Arabian's latter years; for by far the greater number of the preparations were dead bodies, of men, of women, of children, of animals, to all of which the old man had endeavoured to impart the appearance of life, and in treating some of which he had attained results of a startling nature.
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