Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1921-02-26
VI. THE STORM.

VI. THE STORM.
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 1T the featureess long rectangle
of the portrait in the shadows.
Rain sluiced the skylight In wind
whipped waves, with a crisp, tearing
noise. Thunder rocked the skies,
ripped and raved, rumbled away in
lessening .reyerberations. Then with
out warning the gloom was abolished
by ghastly lilac glare-and the face
ON the canvas started out of its dark
background with an uncanny look of
life, the gay mockery Of its smile dis
torted into grinning malice. She was
fain to switch o. 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. 1
Still she was III 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 snecter unseen but importunate
at her, shoulder, round 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
ia | animus $50
She had a crawling SILVER of SUPER
stitious dread. Commonsense was
powerless to comfort her with It's as
surance that she had merely had one
more hypnotic. hallueination Induced
by auto-suggestion, Instinct Insisted
c0mmonsense for once was wrong.
that there was more in this than the
human mind, fettered to the claims Of
natural laws, could comprehend or
cope 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
five minutes; in that scant spell her
soul had journeyed far, tarried a while
in communion with another, and re-
turned with freight of fears, of
doubts and cares that threatened the
stability Of he" 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 perilously
near the verge of arrangement haunt
ed by shape of fear no whit less aw.
full If 1t 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 fate
inscrutable 4.
But not for Iseonora was all this tor
ture of solicitude. Through unhappy
Mario had been marked for
Reds enmity. And where Red hated,
tenure Of life was treacherous
Now 1t was revealed to her that
however inexpicable the affinity of
their souls, however dissimiIar their
circumstances and lrreconcilable their
ways of thought and standards, In this
respect Leon6ra and Priscilla Maine
were one: in love with Mario.
Acknowledging this incredible fact
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 4
living through the night to come. I'M
der whose impenetrable cover Mario
and Leonora must work out their dark
destinies, while she waited.
powerless to help or hinder, In an ig-
1oraDce irremediable and maddening,
Priscilla felt shadow fall athwart
her understanding, as black and cold |
as Death.