A Spinner in the Sun

Depths o

ell. Drowsy with the soporific he had taken, the doctor did not at once respond

d. At length he remembered that just before dusk, in the garden of Evelina Grey's old house, h

oo hard." His reason was fully satisfied with the plausible explanation,

eth milestone. His hair was thinning a little at the temples and the rest of it was touched generously with grey. His features were regular and his ski

sympathetic, but he had outgrown that. His hands were large, white, and well-kept, his fingers knotted, and blunt at the tips. He had, pre-eminently, the han

r distant. Doctor Dexter's name was well known. He had thought seriously, at times, of seeking a wider field, but he liked the country and the open air, and his practice

m upon his chiffonier. Ralph was twenty-three now and would finish in a few weeks at a famous medical school-Doctor Dexter's own alma

days Ralph's letters were expected. He had the entire correspondence on file and whiled away many

ady to hang up on the front of the house beside yours. I'll be glad to get out of the grind for a while, I can tell you that. I've worked as His Satanic Majesty undoubtedly d

a day, regularly. Finally, they'll let me vaccinate the kids and the rest will be pitifully easy. Kids always like me, for some occult reason, and if the children c

nk and friendly and clear, with no hint of suspicion. His chin was firm and his mouth determined, but the corners of it turned up decidedly, and the upper lip was short. The unp

rom his kind was at first spasmodic, then exceptionally complete. Excepting Ralph, his relation to the world was tha

necessary, he said so at once, not troubling himself to approach the subject gradually. If there was doubt as to the outcome, he would cheerfully advise the patient to make

the death of a child, almost to the minute, without a change in his mask-like expression, and feel a faint throb of professional pride whe

s, in itself, was no distinction, for Thorpe was the friend of every man, woman, child, and animal in the village. No two men could have been

ter in much the same way that a new slide for his microscope might interest him. They exchanged visits frequen

One wing, at the right of the house, contained the Doctor's medical library, office, reception room, and laboratory. Doors were arranged in metropolitan fashion, so that patients migh

n like manner for him if he so desired. Doctor Dexter had some rough drawings under

ter went downstairs. The servant met him in t

e Doctor, absently. "I'l

mediately perceived the small, purple velvet box at

-tinted slip of paper on which he had written, so long ago, in his clear, boyish

ring into vacancy, idly fingering the pearls. By some evil magic of the moment, the hour seeme

here had been none like Evelina. How he had loved her, in those dead yesterdays, and how she had

elf. His books had taught him that the mind could hold but one thought at a time, and, persiste

d banished those phantoms of earlier years, save in his dreams. At night, the soul

oward. Refusal to admit it by day does not change the hour of the night w

could guide the knife so well-and Anthony Dexter shuddered. He flung the box f

e Past had come from its grave, veiled, like th

discoloured pearls at his door in the dead of night. The black figure in the garden,

that any other man, in his position, would do as he had done, yet it was as thou

, laughing, exquisitely lovely. The other was a bent and broken woma

r Dexter, aloud. "I've

before him, not perceiving that Remorse incarnate, in the sha