the bed, waiting now with a sinking heart
for the wonted return of the frenzy, clamouring in his soul to heaven
for pity on one whom seemingly no human aid could succour, dared yet
draw no shadow of hope from the more prolonged stillness of the
patient. Presently indeed, she grew restless, tossed her arms,
muttered with parched lips. Then she suddenly sat up and listened as
if to some deeply annoying and disquieting sound, fell back again
under his gentle hands, rolling her little black head wearily from
side to side, only however to start again, and again listen. Thus it
went on for a while until the haunted, weary eyes grew suddenly
distraught with terror and loathing. Straining them into space as if
seeking something she ought to see but could not, she began to speak
in a quick yet distinct whisper:

"How it creaks, creaks--creaks! Will no one stop that creaking! What
is it that creaks so? Will no one stop that creaking!" And again she
placed her cheek on the pillow, covering her ear with her little,
wasted hand, and for a while remained motionless, moaning like a
child. But it was only to spring up again, this time with a cry which
brought the physician from the adjacent sleeping room in alarm to her
bedside.

"Ah, God," she shrieked, her eyes distended and staring as if into the
far distance through walls and outlying darkness. "I see it! They have
done it, they have done it! It is hanging on the sands--how it creaks
and sways in the wind! It will creak for ever, for ever.... Now it
spins round, it looks this way--the black face! It looks at _me_!" She
gave another piercing cry, then her frame grew rigid. With mouth open
and fixed eyeballs she seemed lost in the frightful fascination of the
image before her brain.

As, distracted by the sight of her torments, Adrian hung over her,
racking his mind in the endeavour to soothe her, her words struck a
chill into his very soul. He cast a terrified glance at the doctor who
was ominously feeling her pulse.

"There is a change," he faltered.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"I have told you before," he retorted irritably, "that you should
attach no more importance to the substance of these delirious
wanderings than you would to the ravings of madness. It is the fact of
the delirium itself which must alarm us. She is less and less able to
bear it."

The patient moaned and shuddered, resisting the gentle force that
would have pressed her down on her pillow.