The Beetle: A Mystery

indow I stood shivering. A shower had recently commenced,-the falling rain was being blown before the breeze. I was in a terrible

I was done; had I not been held up, willy nilly, by the spell which was upon me

r was not yet a

nse of the presence of an evil thing. How much of it was fact, and how much of it was the product of imagination I cannot say; but, looking back, it seems to me that it was as if I had been taken out of the corporeal body to be plunged into the inner chambers of all nameless sin. There was the sound of something flopping from off the bed on to the ground, and

nd the room was all in brightness. There, on the bed, in the familiar attitude between the sheets, his head resting on his hand, h

e a thief!-Is it always through th

to give me time t

ell?-the great Paul Lessing

ty saw,-the things he said, and the manner in which he said them, were alike intended to add to m

ef he found you,-were you not ashamed? Since, like a thief he found you, how comes i

that, all at once, he

ou are small, but he is smaller,-your great Paul Le

ght be a modicum of truth in what, with such an intensity of bitterness, the speaker suggested. The picture which,

erience not the slightest difficulty in de

Paul Lessingham is as great a thief as you,-and gre

still; then exclaimed,

hat you ha

abstracted from the little drawer. Perceiving my disinclination to his near neighbourhood, he

stand close at my side? You, with your white skin,

ed if I could possibly be mistaken in the creature's sex. I would have given much to have been able to strike him acr

notice what I was

he drawer in the bureau-the drawer which was locked-and which you use

is nails had been talons. He turned the packet over and over, glaring at it as he di

You hid it as one hides treasure. There should be something here worth having, worth seeing, w

out by a string of pink ribbon,-a fact

d could tie a knot like that,-who would have guessed yours were such agile fingers?-So! An endorsement

human countenance. His jaw dropped open so that his yellow fangs gleamed though his parted lips,-he held his breath so long that each moment I looked to see him fall down in a fit; the veins stood out all over his face and head like seams

,-as I saw!-Marjorie Lindon!-Sweet Marjorie!-His dear love!-Paul Lessingham's dear love!-She with the lily

e never would have done re-reading them. They were on thick white paper, of a peculiar shade of whiteness, with untrimmed edges, On each sheet a crest and an address were stamped in gold, and all the sheets were of the same shape

snarls than anything more human,-like some savage beast nursing its pent-up rage. Wh

dear love has found it

gham!-Paul

renzy of hatred with which the speaker

t on the accursed stream of the bitter waters, to stink under the blood-grimed sun! And for her-for Marjorie Lindon!-for his dear love!-it shall come to pass that she shal

I was there. But, on a sudden, glancing aside, he saw me, and remembered,-and was

ll live!-to make a mock of one

with his horrid hands, bearing me backwards on to the floor; I felt his

OK

aunte

ding to Sydney