This stillness presently imposed its
influence upon me, for when I spoke again, I spoke in a low voice.
"Harley," I said, "my imagination is playing me tricks. I thought I
heard the fluttering of wings at that moment."
"Fortunately, my imagination remains under control," he replied,
grimly; "therefore I am in a position to inform you that you did hear
the fluttering of wings. An owl has just flown into one of the trees
immediately outside the window."
"Oh," said I, and uttered a sigh of relief.
"It is extremely fortunate that my imagination is so carefully
trained," continued Harley; "otherwise, when the woman whose shadow I
saw upon the blind to-night raised her arms in a peculiar fashion, I
could not well have failed to attach undue importance to the shape of
the shadow thus created."
"What was the shape of the shadow, then?"
"Remarkably like that of a bat."
He spoke the words quietly, but in that still darkness, with dawn yet a
long way off, they possessed the power which belongs to certain chords
in music, and to certain lines in poetry. I was chilled unaccountably,
and I peopled the empty corridors of Cray's Folly with I know not what
uncanny creatures; nightmare fancies conjured up from memories of
haunted manors.
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