Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1921-02-03
LouisJoseph Vance
Author Of The False Faces
The Lone WOLF" Etc.
Illustrated by
Irwin Myers
vi. THE STORM.
copyr.sne 1870 by the Authe..

Body and soul seemed welded into
one taut string vibrating in agonized
response to the fury of the tempest
she found herself standing far from
the chair in front of the easel, In
quivering alright gazing over-shoul-
der at the featureless long rectangle
of the portrait in the shadows
Rain sluiced the skylight in wind
whipped waves, with crisp, tearing
noise. Thunder rocked the skies,
ripped and raved, rumbled away in
lessening reverberatons. Then with
out warning the gloom was abolished
by CHASTITY lilac glare-and the face
on the canvas started out of its dark
background with an uncanny look of
life, the gay mockery of it's smile dis
torted into grinning malice. She was
fain to switch on the lights to lay that
ghostly leer.
Even then she dared not look again.
With head averted, she swung the
easel round so that the painting faced
the wall.
Still she was Ill at ease in the COM
pany of the thing. She could not for
get how that cold electric blaze had
seemed to wake the painting into COB
lin life, transient but terrible. The
memory of its jeering smile persisted.
Like specter unseen but importrInate
at her shoulder, round a corner of
her consciousness, denied but insis-
tent, the notion lurked of the work
of her own hands turned monster. pre-
ternaturally inspired with spirit of
fatal animuS
She had crawling SILVER of super-s
stitious dread. Commonsense was
powerless to comfort her with its as
surance that she had merely had one
more hypnotic hallucination induced
by auto-suggeStiOn. Instinct insisted
cOmmOnSense for once was wrong.
that there was more in this than the
human mind, fettered to the claims of
natural laws, could comprehend or
'ope with. Surely supernatural forces
were here at work
She strove without success to cast
out that thought. ;.
Comparing her wrist watch with
memory of the hour marked by the
clock in Leonora's refuge. she reck-
Oned her lapse from full waking con-
seriousness had not lasted longer than
tive minutes: in that scant spell her
soul had jOurneyed far. tarried a while
in communion with another, and re-
turned with a freight of fears. of
doubts and cares that threatened the
stability of her reason; in those few
moments the work of week had been
undone. She stood now where she
had been Immediately after the last
preceding dream, poised perilousy
near the verge of arrangement. haunt
ed by shape of fear no whit less aw-
full if ii were after all only the crea-
ture of her Imagination.
Within five hours her other self
must go to keep an designation with a
murderer. Fancy pictured Leonora
stealing through streets of sinister
shadow TO that rendezvous with "A fate
inScrutable
But not for LeOnora was all this tor.
ture of solicitude. Through unhappy
mischance Mario had been marked for
Reds enmity. And where Red hated.
tenure of life was treacherous
Now 1t was revealed to her that.
however inexplicable the affinity Of
yheir souls. however dissimilar theas
circumstances and irreconcilable their
ways of thought and standards, in this
respect LeOnora and Priscilla Maine
were one: in love with Mario.
Acknowledging this incredible fact
without protest. Priscilla told herself
she had loved Mario always, ever since
that time, long past, when he had first
figured in her life of dreams.
And contemplating the prospect of
living through the night TO come. I'M
der whose impenetrable cover Mario
and LeOnora must work out their dark
entangled destinies, while she waited,
powerless to help or hinder. in an ig-
I norance irremediable and maddening,
Priscilla felt a shadow fall athwart
her understanding, as black and cold
as Death.
CHAPTER FIVE