She had not the time to appreciate that the white-robed figure was brandishing a violin, and that the violin was desding very quickly and with great force toward her own head. Before she could take in any of this, the violin made tact with her skull, blaess overwhelmed her and she fell, unscious, to the floor.
With her arms sprawled any old how, and her white handkerchief still tucked inside her watch strap, she looked as though there wasn’t a drop of life left in her. Little puffs of dust that had e up from the carpet when she landed fell gently back down.
There she lay food half hour, until the Missus, back from the farm where she had been to collect eggs, happeo glan at the door and see a dark shape where she hadn’t seen a dark shape before.
There was no sign of a figure in white.
As I transcribed from memory, Miss Winter’s voice seemed to fill my room with the same degree of reality with which it had filled the library. She had a way of speaking that engraved itself on my memory and was as reliable as a phonograph rec. But at this point, where she said, “There was no sign of a figure in white,” she had paused, and so now I paused, pencil h above the page, as I sidered what had happened .
I had been engrossed iory, and so it took me a moment to re-focus my eye from the prone figure of the doctor’s wife iory to the storyteller herself. When I did I was dismayed. Miss Winter’s normal pallor had given way to an ugly yellow-gray tint, and her frame, always rigid it must be said, seemed at present to be girding itself against some invisible assault. There was a trembling around her mouth, and I guessed that she was on the point of losing the struggle to hold her lips in a firm line and that a repressed grimace was close to winning the day.
I rose from my chair in alarm but had no idea what I ought to do.
‘Miss Winter,“ I exclaimed helplessly, ”whatever is it?“
‘My wolf,“ I thought I heard her say, but the effort to speak was enough to send her lips into a quiver. She closed her eyes, seemed tle to measure her breathing. Just as I was on the point of running to find Judith, Miss Winter regained trol. The rise and fall of her chest slowed, the tremors in her face ceased, and though she was still pale as death, she opened her eyes and looked at me.
‘Better…“ she said weakly.
Slowly I returo my chair.
‘I thought you said something about a wolf,“ I began.
‘Yes. That black beast that gnaws at my bones whenever he gets a ce. He loiters in ers and behind doors most of the time, because he’s afraid of these.“ She indicated the white pills oable beside her. ”But they don’t last forever. It’s nearly twelve and they are wearing off. He is sniffing at my neck. By half past he will be digging his teeth and claws in. Until one, when I take aablet and he will have to return to his er. We are always clockwatg, he and I. He pounces five minutes earlier every day. But I ot take my tablets five minutes earlier. That stays the same.“
‘But surely the doctor—“
‘Of course. Once a week, or once every ten days, he adjusts the dose. Only never quite enough. He does not want to be the oo kill me, you see. And so when it es, it must be the wolf that finishes me off.“
She looked at me, very matter-of-fact, theed.
‘The pills are here, look. And the glass of water. If I wao, I could put ao it myself. Whenever I chose. So do not feel sorry for me. I have chosen this way
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