'I can't say exactly what I have got hold of,'
he said. 'But I have got it.'
Half raising himself, he drew his hand out.
The next instant, he started to his feet with a shriek of terror.
A human head dropped from his nerveless grasp on the floor,
and rolled to Henry's feet. It was the hideous head that Agnes
had seen hovering above her, in the vision of the night!
The two men looked at each other, both struck speechless by the same
emotion of horror. The manager was the first to control himself.
'See to the door, for God's sake!' he said. 'Some of the people
outside may have heard me.'
Henry moved mechanically to the door.
Even when he had his hand on the key, ready to turn it in the lock
in case of necessity, he still looked back at the appalling object
on the floor. There was no possibility of identifying those decayed
and distorted features with any living creature whom he had seen--
and, yet, he was conscious of feeling a vague and awful doubt
which shook him to the soul. The questions which had tortured
the mind of Agnes, were now his questions too. He asked himself,
'In whose likeness might I have recognised it before the decay set in?
The likeness of Ferrari? or the likeness of--?' He paused trembling,
as Agnes had paused trembling before him.
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