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Updated: May 26, 2025
But feeling his shoulder touched as his hand pressed the knob, he turned to meet the eye of Mr. Van Broecklyn fixed upon him with an expression which utterly confounded him. "Where are you going?" that gentleman asked. The questioning tone, the severe look, expressive at once of displeasure and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed to stammer forth: "Mr.
Cornell or Mr. Spielhagen, it is still in that inner room." "Impossible!" came from every lip, each in a different tone. "That room is absolutely empty." "May I have a look at its emptiness?" she asked, with a naive glance at Mr. Van Broecklyn. "There is positively nothing in the room but the chair Mr. Spielhagen sat on," objected that gentleman with a noticeable air of reluctance.
Van Broecklyn to answer, but no word coming from him, every eye turned his way, only to find him sunk in one of those fits of abstraction so well known to his friends, and from which no one who has this strange man's peace of mind at heart ever presumes to rouse him. What was to be done? These moods of their singular host sometimes lasted half an hour, and Mr.
Van Broecklyn went on, to say: "I don't think I ever had a moment's doubt that my parents both lay dead on the floor of that great room.
"I shall have to begin," said he, when they were all seated and ready to listen, "by giving you some idea, not so much of the family tradition, as of the effect of this tradition upon all who bore the name of Van Broecklyn. This is not the only house, even in America, which contains a room shut away from intrusion. In England there are many.
"Still, may I not have a look at it?" she persisted, with that disarming smile she kept for great occasions. Mr. Van Broecklyn bowed. He could not refuse a request so urged, but his step was slow and his manner next to ungracious as he led the way to the door of the adjoining room and threw it open. Just what she had been told to expect! Bare walls and floors and an empty chair!
I have not the least doubt he thought he had been studying the formula at the time he dropped off to sleep. I have every confidence in the gentleman's candour. But so have I in that of Mr. Cornell," she supplemented, with a smile. An exclamation from Mr. Van Broecklyn and a subdued murmur from all but Mr.
Several minutes passed during which the man who had served at table entered with a tray on which were several small glasses evidently containing some choice liqueur. Finding his master fixed in one of his strange moods, he set the tray down and, pointing to one of the glasses, said: "That is for Mr. Van Broecklyn. It contains his usual quieting powder."
But she touched the bottom of extreme terror at that moment, as with her ears still thrilling with Violet's piercing cry, she turned to look at Mr. Van Broecklyn, and beheld the instantaneous wreck it had made of this seemingly strong man.
She was near the threshold she was about to take her leave, when suddenly she felt two hands fall on her shoulder, and turning, met the eyes of Mr. Van Broecklyn burning into her own. "You saw!" dropped in an almost inaudible whisper from his lips. The shiver which shook her answered him better than any word.
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