And, in their rigid grasp was something
that struck Barnabas motionless; that brought him back slowly,
slowly across that awful room to sink upon one knee above that pale,
clenched hand, while, sweating, shuddering with loathing, he forced
open those stiffening fingers and drew from their dead clutch
something that he stared at with dilating eyes, and with white lips
suddenly compressed, ere he hid it away in his pocket.
Then, shivering, he arose and backed away, feeling behind him for
the door, and so passed out into the passage and down the stairs,
but always with his pale face turned toward the dim-lit room where
Jasper Gaunt lolled in his chair, a bedabbled, wide-eyed thing of
horror, staring up at the dingy ceiling.
Thus, moving ever backwards, Barnabas came to the front door, felt
for the catch, but, with his hand upon it, paused once more to listen;
yet heard only the thick beating of his own heart, and the loud,
deliberate ticking of the wizen-faced clock upon the stairs. And now,
as he hearkened, it seemed to him that it spoke no more but had
taken on a new and more awful sound; for now its slow, rhythmic beat
was hatefully like another sound, a soft sound and regular, a small,
dull, plashing sound,--the awful tap! tap! tap! of great,
slow-falling drops of blood.
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