The Dark Other

The girl shuddered. Now in the calm light of morning, the events of last night seemed doubly horrible; she doubted her ability to believe them, so incredible did they seem. She...

On the porch she cast a cautious glance at Dr. Horker's windows, but his great figure was nowhere evident. Only a light burning in the library evinced his presence. She gave a s...

"Go away!" murmured Pat faintly. The approach of his face had unnerved her, and she felt terror beginning to stir within her. "Go away!" she said again. "Why do you have to torm...

But this time it _was_ for her. She darted into the hall to take the call on the lower phone; she was hardly surprised but thoroughly excited to recognize the voice of Nicholas...

"I can't think of any others. Except, perhaps, a feeling of exhaustion after I've gone through what I've just finished." He closed his eyes as if to shut out the recollection.

"That!" His voice was icy and contemptuous. "That was the drivel of a weakling. No; I mean evil, not horror--the living evil that can be so beautiful that one walks deliberately...

"Well, here's what I remember about him, Pat. He was an M.D., all right, but I see by his paper there--the one I was reading--that he was on the staff of Northern U. He did some...

"I can't be, Pat! I'll never be sure that _he_ isn't just dormant, as he was before, waiting for my weakness to betray me! I'll never be certain, Honey! It _has_ to be good-bye!"

Doctor Horker smiled placatingly into her face. "Pat dear," he said earnestly, "don't you see I'd give my eyes to help you? Don't take my flippancies too seriously, Honey; look...

"Back!" the being snapped as the great form bent over him. The Doctor paused as if struck rigid, his arm and heavy fist drawn back like the conventional fighting pose of a boxer...

"Rabelais!" Horker's voice boomed. "Well! Your taste can't be as bad as I thought, then. There's one we agree on, anyway. And I notice you name no moderns, which is another good...

"That isn't what I mean," said Nicholas Devine, turning his eyes on his companion. "I mean pure horror in the sense of horror detached from experience, apart from reality. Not j...

"It's what I said," asserted Pat. "It's a devil, and what you've just told me about tumors proves it. They're devils, that's all, and some day some student is going to cut one l...