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Keith was swimming, together with his two
genii; he looked like a rosy Silenus. They seemed to be enjoying
themselves vastly, to judge by the outbursts of laughter. Mr. Heard
thought of going to join the fun, but gave up the idea; there was
something astir that clogged his energies.
He knew them--these Southern noons. If no ghost resided in the
melancholy ruin hard by, there might well be some imponderable hostile
essence afloat in the still air of midday. Anything, he felt, could
happen at this unearthly hour. The wildest follies might be committed
at the bidding of this unseen Presence.
He tried to recollect what Keith had told him concerning Muhlen, that
corrupt personality. Retlow . . . where had he heard that name before?
In vain he flogged his memory. There was an alien power in this
brightness; a power as of a vampire that drained away his faculties,
his vitality; a spirit of evil, exhaling from the sunny calm. It made a
mock, a mirage, of the landscape which danced before his eyes; it
distorted the realities of nature, the works of man.


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