But, as always, thought brought no release. It merely insisted that the case against him was proved. At last he had been seen slipping unconsciously from his room—and at the same hour. All that remained was to learn how he had accomplished2 the apparent miracles. Then no excuse would remain for not going to Robinson and confessing. The woman at the lake and in the courtyard, the movement of the body and the vanishing of the evidence under his hand, Paredes's odd behaviour, all became in his mind puzzling details that failed to obscure the chief fact. After this something must be done about Paredes's detention3.
He hadn't dreamed that his weariness could placate4 even momentarily such reflections, but at last he slept again. He was aroused by the tramping of men around the house, and strange, harsh voices. He raised himself on his elbow and glanced from the window. It had long been daylight. Two burly fellows in overalls6, carrying pick and spade across their shoulders, pushed through the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. He turned. Graham, fully7 dressed, stood at the side of the bed.
"Those men?" Bobby asked wearily.
"The grave diggers," Graham answered. "They are going to work in the old cemetery8 to prepare a place for Silas Blackburn with his fathers. That's why I've come to wake you up. The minister's telephoned Katherine. He will be here before noon. Do you know it's after ten o'clock?"
For some time Bobby stared through the window at the desolate9, ragged10 landscape. It was abnormally cold even for the late fall. Dull clouds obscured the sun and furnished an illusion of crowding earthward.
"A funereal11 day."
The words slipped into his mind. He repeated them.
"When your grandfather's buried," Graham answered softly, "we'll all feel happier."
"Why?" Bobby asked. "It won't lessen12 the fact of his murder."
"Time," Graham said, "lessens13 such facts—even for the police."
Bobby glanced at him, flushing.
"You mean you've decided14 to stand by me after what happened last night?"
Graham smiled.
"I've thought it all over. I slept like a top last night. I heard nothing. I saw nothing."
"Ought I to want you to stand by me?" Bobby said. "Oughtn't I to make a clean breast of it? At least I must do something about Paredes."
Graham frowned.
"It's hard to believe he had any connection with your sleep-walking last night, yet it's as clear as ever that Maria and he are up to some game in which you figure."
"He shouldn't be in jail," Bobby persisted.
"Get up," Graham advised. "Bathe, and have some breakfast, then we can decide. There's no use talking of the other thing. I've forgotten it. As far as possible you must."
Bobby sprang upright.
"How can I forget it? If it was hard to face sleep before, what do you think it is now? Have I any right—"
"Don't," Graham said. "I'll be with you again to-night. If I were satisfied beyond the shadow of a doubt I'd advise you to confess, but I can't be until I know what Maria and Paredes are doing."
When Bobby had bathed and dressed he found, in spite of his mental turmoil15, that his sleep had done him good. While he breakfasted Graham urged him to eat, tried to drive from his brain the morbid16 aftermath of last night's revealing moment.
"The manager took my advice, but Maria's still missing. Her pictures are in most of the papers. There have been reporters here this morning, about the murders."
He strolled over and handed Bobby a number of newspapers.
"Where's Robinson?" Bobby asked.
"I saw him in the court a while ago. I daresay he's wandering around—perhaps watching the men at the grave."
"He learned nothing new last night?"
"I was with him at breakfast. I gather not."
Bobby looked up.
"Isn't that an automobile17 coming through the woods?" he asked.
"Maybe Rawlins back from Smithtown, or the minister."
The car stopped at the entrance of the court. They heard the remote tinkling18 of the front door bell. Jenkins passed through. The cold air invading the hall and the dining room told them he had opened the door. His sharp exclamation19 recalled Howells's report which, at their direction, he had failed to mail. Had his exclamation been drawn20 by an accuser? Bobby started to rise. Graham moved toward the door. Then Jenkins entered and stood to one side. Bobby shared his astonishment21, for Paredes walked in, unbuttoning his overcoat, the former easy-mannered, uncommunicative foreigner. He appeared, moreover, to have slept pleasantly. His eyes showed no weariness, his clothing no disarrangement. He spoke22 at once, quite as if nothing disagreeable had shadowed his departure.
"Good morning. If I had dreamed of this change in the weather I would have brought a heavier overcoat. I've nearly frozen driving from Smithtown."
Before either man could grope for a suitable greeting he faced Bobby. He felt in his pockets with whimsical discouragement.
"Fact is, Bobby, I left New York too suddenly. I hadn't noticed until a little while ago. You see I spent a good deal in Smithtown yesterday."
Bobby spoke with an obvious confusion:
"What do you mean, Carlos? I thought you were—"
Graham interrupted with a flat demand for an explanation.
"How did you get away?"
Paredes waved his hand.
"Later, Mr. Graham. There is a hack23 driver outside who is even more suspicious than you. He wants to be paid. I asked Rawlins to drive me back, but he rushed from the courthouse, probably to telephone his rotund superior. Fact is, this fellow wants five dollars—an outrageous24 rate. I've told him so—but it doesn't do any good. So will you lend me Bobby—"
Bobby handed him a banknote. He didn't miss Graham's meaning glance.
Paredes gave the money to the butler.
"Pay him, will you, Jenkins? Thanks."
He surveyed the remains25 of Bobby's breakfast. He sat down.
"May I? My breakfast was early, and prison food, when you're not in the habit—"
Bobby tried to account for Paredes's friendly manner. That he should have come back at all was sufficiently26 strange, but it was harder to understand why he should express no resentment27 for his treatment yesterday, why he should fail to refer to Bobby's questions at the moment of his arrest, or to the openly expressed enmity of Graham. Only one theory promised to fit at all. It was necessary for the Panamanian to return to the Cedars28. His purpose, whatever it was, compelled him to remain for the present in the mournful, tragic29 house. Therefore, he would crush his justifiable30 anger. He would make it practically impossible for Bobby to refuse his hospitality. And he had asked for money—only a trifling31 sum, yet Graham would grasp at the fact to support his earlier suspicion.
Paredes's arrival possessed32 one virtue33: It diverted Bobby's thoughts temporarily from his own dilemma34, from his inability to chart a course.
Graham, on the other hand, was ill at ease. Beyond a doubt he was disarmed35 by Paredes's good humour. For him yesterday's incident was not so lightly to be passed over. Eventually his curiosity conquered. The words came, nevertheless, with some difficulty:
"We scarcely expected you back."
His laugh was short and embarrassed.
"We took it for granted you would find it necessary to stay in Smithtown for a while."
Paredes sipped36 the coffee which Jenkins had poured.
"Splendid coffee! You should have tasted what I had this morning. Simple enough, Mr. Graham. I telephoned as soon as Rawlins got me to the Bastille. I communicated with the lawyer who represents the company for which I once worked. He's a prominent and brilliant man. He planned it with some local fellow. When I was arraigned37 at the opening of court this morning the judge could hold me only as a material witness. He fixed38 a pretty stiff bail39, but the local lawyer was there with a bondsman, and I came back. My clothes are here. You don't mind, Bobby?"
That moment in the hall when Graham had awakened40 him urged Bobby to reply with a genuine warmth:
"I don't mind. I'm glad you're out of it. I'm sorry you went as you did. I was tired, at my wits' end. Your presence in the private staircase was the last straw. You will forgive us, Carlos?"
Paredes smiled. He put down his coffee cup and lighted a cigarette. He smoked with a vast contentment.
"That's better. Nothing to forgive, Bobby. Let us call it a misunderstanding."
Graham moved closer.
"Perhaps you'll tell us now what you were doing in the private staircase."
Paredes blew a wreath of smoke. His eyes still smiled, but his voice was harder:
"Bygones are bygones. Isn't that so, Bobby?"
"Since you wish it," Bobby said.
But more important than the knowledge Graham desired, loomed42 the old question. What was the man's game? What held him here?
Robinson entered. The flesh around his eyes was puffier than it had been yesterday. Worry had increased the incongruous discontent of his round face. Clearly he had slept little.
"I saw you arrive," he said. "Rawlins warned me. But I must say I didn't think you'd use your freedom to come to us."
Paredes laughed.
"Since the law won't hold me at your convenience in Smithtown I keep myself at your service here—if Bobby permits it. Could you ask more?"
Bobby shrank from the man with whom he had idled away so much time and money. That fleeting43, satanic impression of yesterday came back, sharper, more alarming. Paredes's clear challenge to the district attorney was the measure of his strength. His mind was subtler than theirs. His reserve and easy daring mastered them all; and always, as now, he laughed at the futility44 of their efforts to sound his purposes, to limit his freedom of action. Bobby didn't care to meet the uncommunicative eyes whose depths he had never been able to explore. Was there a special power there that could control the destinies of other people, that might make men walk unconsciously to accomplish the ends of an unscrupulous brain?
The district attorney appeared as much at sea as the others.
"Thanks," he said dryly to Paredes.
And glancing at Bobby, he asked with a hollow scorn:
"You've no objection to the gentleman visiting you for the present?"
"If he wishes," Bobby answered, a trifle amused at Robinson's obvious fancy of a collusion between Paredes and himself.
Robinson jerked his head toward the window.
"I've been watching the preparations out there. I guess when he's laid away you'll be thinking about having the will read."
"No hurry," Bobby answered with a quick intake46 of breath.
"I suppose not," Robinson sneered47, "since everybody knows well enough what's in it."
Bobby arose. Robinson still sneered.
"You'll be at the grave—as chief mourner?"
Bobby walked from the room. He hadn't cared to reply. He feared, as it was, that he had let slip his increased self-doubt. He put on his coat and hat and left the house. The raw cold, the year's first omen5 of winter, made his blood run quicker, forced into his mind a cleansing48 stimulation49. But almost immediately even that prophylactic50 was denied him. With his direction a matter of indifference51, chance led him into the thicket52 at the side of the house. He had walked some distance. The underbrush had long interposed a veil between him and the Cedars above whose roofs smoke wreathed in the still air like fantastic figures weaving a shroud53 to lower over the time-stained, melancholy54 walls. For once he was grateful to the forest because it had forbidden him to glance perpetually back at that dismal55 and pensive56 picture. Then he became aware of twigs57 hastily lopped off, of bushes bent58 and torn, of the uncovering, through these careless means, of an old path. Simultaneously59 there reached his ears the scraping of metal implements60 in the soft soil, the dull thud of earth falling regularly. He paused, listening. The labour of the men was given an uncouth61 rhythm by their grunting62 expulsions of breath. Otherwise the nature of their industry and its surroundings had imposed upon them a silence, in itself beast-like and unnatural63.
At last a harsh voice came to Bobby. Its brevity pointed64 the previous dumbness of the speaker:
"Deep enough!"
And Bobby turned and hurried back along the roughly restored path, as if fleeing from an immaterial thing suddenly quickened with the power of accusation65.
He could picture the fresh oblong excavation66 in the soil of the family burial ground. He could see where the men had had to tear bushes from among the graves in order to insert their tools. There was an ironical67 justice in the condition of the old cemetery. It had received no interment since the death of Katherine's father. Like everything about the Cedars, Silas Blackburn had delivered it to the swift, obliterating68 fingers of time. If the old man in his selfishness had paused to gaze beyond the inevitable69 fact of death, Bobby reflected, he would have guarded with a more precious interest the drapings of his final sleep.
This necessary task on which Bobby had stumbled had made the thicket less congenial than the house. As he walked back he forecasted with a keen apprehension70 his approaching ordeal71. It would, doubtless, be more difficult to endure than Howells's experiment over Silas Blackburn's body in the old room. Could he witness the definite imprisonment72 of his grandfather in a narrow box; could he watch the covering earth fall noisily in that bleak73 place of silence without displaying for Robinson the guilt74 that impressed him more and more?
A strange man appeared, walking from the direction of the house. His black clothing, relieved only by narrow edges of white cuffs75 between the sleeves and the heavy mourning gloves, fitted with solemn harmony into the landscape and Bobby's mood. Such a figure was appropriate to the Cedars. Bobby stepped to one side, placing a screen of dead foliage76 between himself and the man whose profession it was to mourn. He emerged from the forest and saw again the leisurely77 weaving of the smoke shroud above the house. Then his eyes were drawn by the restless movements of a pair of horses, standing41 in the shafts78 of a black wagon79 at the court entrance, and his ordeal became like a vast morass80 which offers no likely path yet whose crossing is the price of salvation81.
He was glad to see Graham leave the court and hurry toward him.
"I was coming to hunt you up, Bobby. The minister's arrived. So has
Doctor Groom82. Everything's about ready."
"Doctor Groom?"
"Yes. He used to see a good deal of your grandfather. It's natural enough he should be here."
Bobby agreed indifferently. They walked slowly back to the house. Graham made it plain that his mind was far from the sad business ahead.
"What do you think of Paredes coming back as if nothing were wrong?" he asked. "He ignores what happened yesterday. He settles himself in the Cedars again."
"I don't know what to think of it," Bobby answered. "This morning Carlos gave me the creeps."
Graham glanced at him curiously83. He spoke with pronounced deliberation, startling Bobby; for this friend expressed practically the thought that Paredes's arrival had driven into his own mind.
"Gave me the creeps, too. Makes me surer than ever that he has an abominably84 deep purpose in using his wits to hang on here. He suggests resources as hard to understand as anything that has happened in the old room. You'll confess, Bobby, he's had a good deal of influence over you—an influence for evil?"
"I've liked to go around with him, if that's what you mean."
"Isn't he the cause of the last two or three months nonsense in
New York?"
"I won't blame Carlos for that," Bobby muttered.
"He influenced you against your better judgment," Graham persisted, "to refuse to leave with me the night of your grandfather's death."
"Maria did her share," Bobby said.
He broke off, looking at Graham.
"What are you driving at?"
"I've been asking myself since he came back," Graham answered, "if there's any queer power behind his quiet manner. Maybe he is psychic85. Maybe he can do things we don't understand. I've wondered if he had, without your knowing it, acquired sufficient influence to direct your body when your mind no longer controlled it. It's a nasty thought, but I've heard of such things."
"You mean Carlos may have made me go to the hall last night, perhaps sent me to the old room those other times?"
Now that another had expressed the idea Bobby fought it with all his might.
"No. I won't believe it. I've been weak, Hartley, but not that weak. And
I tell you I did feel Howells's body move under my hand."
"Don't misunderstand me," Graham said gently. "I must consider every possibility. You were excited and imaginative when you went to the old room to take the evidence. It was a shock to have your candle go out. Your own hand, reaching out to Howells, might have moved spasmodically. I mean, you may have been responsible for the thing without realizing it."
"And the disappearance86 of the evidence?" Bobby defended himself.
"If it had been stolen earlier the coat pocket might have retained its bulging87 shape. We know now that Paredes is capable of sneaking88 around the house."
"No, no," Bobby said hotly. "You're trying to take away my one hope. But I was there, and you weren't. I know with my own senses what happened, and you don't. Paredes has no such influence over me. I won't think of it."
"If it's so far-fetched," Graham asked quietly, "why do you revolt from the idea?"
Bobby turned on him.
"And why do you fill my mind with such thoughts? If you think I'm guilty say so. Go tell Robinson so."
He glanced away while the angry colour left his face. He was a little dazed by the realization89 that he had spoken to Graham as he might have done to an enemy, as he had spoken to Howells in the old bedroom. He felt the touch of Graham's hand on his shoulder.
"I'm only working in your service," Graham said kindly90. "I'm sorry if I've troubled you by seeking physical facts in order to escape the ghosts. For Groom has brought the ghosts back with him. Don't make any mistake about that. You want the truth, don't you?"
"Yes," Bobby said, "even if it does for me. But I want it quickly. I can't go on this way indefinitely."
Yet that flash of temper had given him courage to face the ordeal. A lingering resentment at Graham's suggestion lessened91 the difficulty of his position. Entering the court, he scarcely glanced at the black wagon.
There were more dark-clothed men in the hall. Rawlins had returned. From the rug in front of the fireplace he surveyed the group with a bland92 curiosity. Robinson sat near by, glowering93 at Paredes. The Panamanian had changed his clothing. He, too, was sombrely dressed, and, instead of the vivid necktie he had worn from the courthouse, a jet-black scarf was perfectly94 arranged beneath his collar. He lounged opposite the district attorney, his eyes studying the fire. His fingers on the chair arm were restless.
Doctor Groom stood at the foot of the stairs, talking with the clergyman, a stout95 and unctuous96 figure. Bobby noticed that the great stolid97 form of the doctor was ill at ease. From his thickly bearded face his reddish eyes gleamed forth98 with a fresh instability.
The clergyman shook hands with Bobby. "We need not delay. Your cousin is upstairs." He included the company in his circling turn of the head.
"Any one who cares to go—"
Bobby forced himself to walk up the staircase, facing the first phase of his ordeal. He saw that the district attorney realized that, too, for he sprang from his chair, and, followed by Rawlins, started upward. The entire company crowded the stairs. At the top Bobby found Paredes at his side.
"Carlos! Why do you come?"
"I would like to be of some comfort," Paredes answered gravely.
His fingers on the banister made that restless, groping movement.
Graham summoned Katherine. One of the black-clothed men opened the door of Silas Blackburn's room. He stepped aside, beckoning99. He had an air of a showman craving100 approbation101 for the surprise he has arranged.
Bobby went in with the others. Automatically through the dim light he catalogued remembered objects, all intimate to his grandfather, each oddly entangled102 in his mind with his dislike of the old man. The iron bed; the chest of drawers, scratched and with broken handles; the closed colonial desk; the miserly rag carpet—all seemed mutely asking, as Bobby did, why their owner had deserted104 them the other night and delivered himself to the ghostly mystery of the old bedroom.
Reluctantly Bobby's glance went to the centre of the floor where the casket rested on trestles. From the chest of drawers two candles, the only light, played wanly105 over the still figure and the ashen106 face. So for the second time the living met the dead, and the law watched hopefully.
Robinson stood opposite, but he didn't look at Silas Blackburn who could no longer accuse. He stared instead at Bobby, and Bobby kept repeating to himself:
"I didn't do this thing. I didn't do this thing."
And he searched the face of the dead man for a confirmation107. A chill thought, not without excuse under the circumstances and in this vague light, raced along his nerves. Silas Blackburn had moved once since his death. If the power to move and speak should miraculously108 return to him now! In this house there appeared to be no impossibilities. The cold control of death had been twice broken.
Katherine's entrance swung his thoughts and released him for a moment from Robinson's watchfulness109. He found he could turn from the wrinkled face that had fascinated him, that had seemed to question him with a calm and complete knowledge, to the lovely one that was active with a little smile of encouragement. He was grateful for that. It taught him that in the heavy presence of death and from the harsh trappings of mourning the magnetism110 of youth is unconquerable. So in affection he found an antidote111 for fear. Even Graham's quick movement to her side couldn't make her presence less helpful to Bobby. He looked at his grandfather again. He glanced at Robinson. As in a dream he heard, the clergyman say:
"The service will be read at the grave."
Almost indifferently he saw the dark-clothed men sidle forward, lift a grotesquely112 shaped plate of metal from the floor, and fit it in place, hiding from his eyes the closed eyes of the dead man. He nodded and stepped to the hall when Robinson tapped his arm and whispered:
"Make way, Mr. Blackburn."
He watched the sombre men carry their heavy burden across the hall, down the stairs, and into the dull autumn air. He followed at the side of Katherine across the clearing and into the overgrown path. He was aware of the others drifting behind. Katherine slipped her hand in his.
"It is dreadful we shouldn't feel more sorrow, more regret," she said. "Perhaps we never understood him. That is dreadful, too; for no one understood him. We are the only mourners."
Bobby, as they threaded the path behind the stumbling bearers, found a grim justice in that also. Because of his selfishness Silas Blackburn had lived alone. Because of it he must go to his long rest with no other mourners than these, and their eyes were dry.
Bobby clung to Katherine's hand.
"If I could only know!" he whispered.
She pressed his hand. She did not reply.
Ahead the forest was scarred by a yellow wound. The bearers set their burden down beside it, glancing at each other with relief. Across the heap of earth Bobby saw the waiting excavation. In his ears vibrated the memory of the harsh voice:
"It's deep enough!"
Another voice droned. It was soft and unctuous. It seemed to take a pleasure in the terrible words it loosed to stray eternally through the decaying forest.
Bobby glanced at bent stones, strangled by the underbrush; at other slabs114, cracked and brown, which lay prone115, half covered by creeping vines. The tones of the clergyman were no longer revolting in his ears. He scarcely heard them. He imagined a fantasy. He pictured the inhabitants of these forgotten, narrow houses straying to the great dwelling116 where they had lived, punishing this one, bringing him to suffer with them the degradation117 of their neglect. So Robinson became less important in his mind. Through such fancies the ordeal was made bearable.
A wind sprang up, rattling118 through the trees and disturbing the vines on the fallen stones. Later, he thought, it would snow, and he shivered for those left helpless to sleep in the sad forest.
The dark-clothed men strained at ropes now. They glanced at Katherine and Bobby as at those most to be impressed by their skill. They lowered Silas Blackburn's grimly shaped casing into the sorrel pit. It passed from Bobby's sight. The two roughly dressed labourers came from the thicket where they had hidden, and with their spades approached the grave. The sound from whose imminence119 Bobby had shrunk rattled120 in his ears. The yellow earth cut across the stormy twilight121 of the cemetery and scattered122 in the trench123. After a time the response lost its metallic124 petulance125.
Katherine pulled at Bobby's hand. He started and glanced up. One of the black-clothed men was speaking to him with a professional gentleness:
"You needn't wait, Mr. Blackburn. Everything is finished."
He saw now that Robinson stood across the grave still staring at him. The professional mourner smiled sympathetically and moved away. Katherine, Robinson, the two grave diggers, and Bobby alone were left of the little company; and Bobby, staring back at the district attorney, took a sombre pride in facing it out until even the men with the spades had gone. The ordeal, he reflected, had lost its poignancy126. His mind was intent on the empty trappings he had witnessed. He wondered if there was, after all, no justice against his grandfather in this unkempt burial. The place might have something to tell him. If it could only make him believe that beyond the inevitable fact nothing mattered. If he were sure of that it would offer a way out at the worst; perhaps the happiest exit for Katherine's sake.
Then Doctor Groom returned. His huge hairy figure dominated the cemetery. His infused eyes, beneath the thick black brows, were far-seeing. They seemed to penetrate127 Bobby's thought. Then they glanced at the excavation, appearing to intimate that Silas Blackburn's earthy blanket could hide nothing from the closed eyes it sheltered. At his age he faced the near approach of that inevitable fact, and he didn't hesitate to look beyond. Bobby knew what Graham had meant when he had said that Groom had brought the ghosts back with him. It was as if the cemetery had recalled the old doctor to answer his presumptuous128 question.
"There's no use your staying here."
The resonance129 of the deep voice jarred through the woods. The broad shoulders twitched130. One of the hairy hands made a half circle.
"I hope you'll clean this up, my boy. You ought to replace the stones and trim the graves. You couldn't blame them, could you, if these old people were restless and tried to go abroad?"
For Bobby, in spite of himself, the man on whose last shelter the earth continued to fall became once more a potent131 thing, able to appraise132 the penalty of his own carelessness.
"Come," Katherine whispered.
But Bobby lingered, oddly fascinated, supporting the ordeal to its final moment. The blows of the backs of the spades on the completed mound133 beat into his brain the end. The workmen wandered off through the woods. From a distance the harsh voice of one of them came back:
"I don't want to dig again in such a place. People don't seem dead there."
Robinson tried to laugh.
"That man's wise," he said to the doctor. "If Paredes spoke of this cemetery as being full of ghosts I could understand him."
The doctor's deep bass134 answered thoughtfully:
"Paredes is probably right. The man has a special sense, but I have felt it myself. The Cedars and the forest are full of things that seem to whisper, things that one never sees. Such things might have an excuse for evil."
"Let's get out of it," Robinson said gruffly.
Katherine withdrew her hand. Bobby reached for it again, but she seemed not to notice. She walked ahead of him along the path, her shoulders a trifle bent. Bobby caught up with her.
"Katherine!" he said.
"Don't talk to me, Bobby."
He looked closer. He saw that she was crying at last. Tears stained her cheeks. Her lips were strange to him in the distortion of a grief that seeks to control itself. He slackened his pace and let her walk ahead. He followed with a sort of awe103 that there should have been grief for Silas Blackburn after all. He blamed himself because his own eyes were not moist.
Back of him he heard the murmuring conversation of the doctor and the district attorney. Strangely it made him sorry that Robinson should have been more impressed than Howells by the doctor's beliefs.
They stepped into the clearing. The wind had dissipated the smoke shroud. It was no longer low over the roofs. Against the forest and the darker clouds the house had a stark135 appearance. It was like a frame from which the flesh has fallen.
The black wagon had gone. The Cedars was left alone to the solution of its mystery.
Paredes, Graham, and Rawlins waited for them in the hall. There was nothing to say. Paredes placed with a delicate accuracy fresh logs upon the fire. He arose, flecking the wood dust from his hands.
"How cold it will be here," he mused45, "how impossible of entrance when the house is left as empty as the woods to those who only go unseen!"
Bobby saw Katherine's shoulders shake. She had dried her eyes, but in her face was expressed an aversion for solitude136, a desire for any company, even that of the man she disliked and feared.
Robinson took Rawlins to the library for another futile137 consultation138, Bobby guessed. Katherine sat on the arm of a chair, thrusting one foot toward the fresh blaze.
"It will snow," she said. "It is very early for that."
No one answered. The strain tightened139. The flames leapt, throwing evanescent pulsations of brilliancy about the dusky hall. They welcomed Jenkins's announcement that luncheon140 was ready, but they scarcely disturbed the hurriedly prepared dishes, and afterward141 they gathered again in the hall, silent and depressed142, appalled143 by the long, dreary144 afternoon, which, however, possessed the single virtue of dividing them from another night.
For long periods the district attorney and the detective were closeted in the library. Now and then they passed upstairs, and they could be heard moving about, but no one, save Graham, seemed to care. Already the officers had had every opportunity to search the house. The old room no longer held an inhabitant to set its fatal machinery145 in motion. Yet Bobby realized in a dull way that at any moment the two men might come down to him, saying:
"We have found something. You are guilty."
The heavy atmosphere of the house crushed such forecasts, made them seem a little trivial. Bobby fancied it gathering146 density147 to cradle new mysteries. The long minutes loitered. Doctor Groom made a movement to go.
"Why should I stay?" he grumbled148. "What is there to keep me?"
Yet he sat back in his chair again and appeared to have forgotten his intention.
Graham wandered off. Bobby thought he had joined Rawlins and Robinson in the library.
The only daylight entered the hall through narrow slits149 of windows on either side of the front door. Bobby, watching these, was, even with the problems night brought to him now, glad when they grew paler.
Paredes, who had been smoking cigarette after cigarette, arose and brought his card table. Drawing it close to him, he arranged the cards in neat piles. The uncertain firelight made it barely possible to identify their numbers. Doctor Groom gestured his disgust. Katherine stooped forward, placing her hands on the table.
"Is it kind," she asked, "so soon after he has left his house?"
Paredes started.
"Wait!" he said softly.
Puzzled, she glanced at him.
"Stay just as you are," he directed. "There has been so much death in this house—who knows?"
Languidly he placed his fingers on the edge of the table opposite hers.
"What are you doing?" Dr. Groom asked hoarsely150.
"Wait!" Paredes said again.
Then Bobby, scarcely aware of what was going on, saw the cards glide151 softly across the face of the table and flutter to the floor. The table had lifted slowly toward the Panamanian. It stood now on two legs.
"What is it?" Katherine said. "It's moving. I can feel it move beneath my fingers."
Her words recalled to Bobby unavoidably his experience in the old room.
"Don't do that!" the doctor cried.
Paredes smiled.
"If," he answered, "the source of these crimes is, as you think, spiritual, why not ask the spirits for a solution? You see how quickly the table responds. It is as I thought. There is something in this hall. Haven't you a feeling that the dead are in this dark hall with us? They may wish to speak. See!"
The table settled softly down without any noise. It commenced to rise again. Katherine lifted her hands with a visible effort, as if the table had tried to hold them against her will. She covered her face and sat trembling.
"I won't! I—"
Paredes shrugged152 his shoulders, appealing to the doctor. The huge, shaggy head shook determinedly153.
"I'm not so sure I don't agree with you. I'm not so sure the dead aren't in this hall. That is why I'll have nothing to do with such dangerous play. It has shown us, at least, that you are psychic, Mr. Paredes."
"I have a gift," Paredes murmured. "It would be useful to speak with them. They see so much more than we do."
He lifted his hands. He waved them dejectedly. He stooped and commenced picking up the cards. The doctor arose.
"I shall go now." He sighed. "I don't know why I have stayed."
Bobby got his coat and hat.
"I'll walk to the stable with you."
He was glad to escape from the dismal hall in which the firelight grew more eccentric. The court was colder and damper, and even beyond the chill was more penetrating154 than it had been at the grave that noon. Uneven155 flakes156 of snow sifted157 from the swollen158 sky, heralds159 of a white invasion.
"No more sleep-walking?" the doctor asked when he had taken the blanket from his horse and climbed into the buggy.
Bobby leaned against the wall of the stable and told how Graham had brought him back the previous night from the stairhead, to which he had gone with a purpose he didn't dare sound. The doctor shook his head.
"You shouldn't tell me that. You shouldn't tell any one. You place yourself too much in my hands, as you are already in Graham's hands. Maybe that is all right. But the district attorney? You're sure he knows nothing of this habit which seems to have commenced the night of the first murder?"
"No, and I think Paredes alone of those who know about that first night would be likely to tell him."
"See that he doesn't," the doctor said shortly. "I've been watching Robinson. If he doesn't make an arrest pretty soon with something back of it he'll lose his mind. He mightn't stop to ask, as I do, as Howells did, about the locked doors and the nature of the wounds."
"How shall I find the courage to sleep to-night?" Bobby asked.
The doctor thought for a moment.
"Suppose I come back?" he said. "I've only one or two unimportant cases to look after. I ought to return before dinner. I'll take Graham's place for to-night. It's time your reactions were better diagnosed. I'll share your room, and you can go to sleep, assured that you'll come to no harm, that harm will come to no one through you. I'll bring some books on the subject. I'll read them while you sleep. Perhaps I can learn the impulse that makes your body active while your mind's a blank."
The idea of the influence of Paredes, which Graham had put into words, slipped back to Bobby. He was, nevertheless, strengthened by the doctor's promise. To an extent the dread113 of the night fell from him like a smothering160 garment. This old man, who had always filled him with discomfort161, had become a capable support in his difficult hour. He saw him drive away. He studied his watch, computing162 the time that must elapse before he could return. He wanted him at the Cedars even though the doctor believed more thoroughly163 than any one else in the spiritual survival of old passions and the power of the dead to project a physical evil.
He didn't care to go back to the hall. It would do him good to walk, to force as far as he could from his mind the memory of the ordeal at the grave, the grim, impending164 atmosphere of the house. And suppose he should accomplish something useful? Suppose he should succeed where Graham had failed?
So he walked toward the stagnant165 lake. The flakes of snow fell thicker. Already they had gathered in white patches on the floor of the forest. If this weather continued the woods would cease to be habitable for that dark feminine figure through which they had accounted for the mournful crying after Howells's death, which Graham had tried to identify with the dancer, Maria.
As he passed the neighbourhood of the cemetery; he walked faster. Many yards of underbrush separated him from the little time-devastated city of the dead, but its mere1 proximity166 forced on him, as the old room had done, a feeling of a stealthy and intangible companionship.
He stepped from the fringe of trees about the open space in the centre of which the lake brooded. The water received with a destructive indifference the fluttering caresses167 of the snowflakes. Bobby paused with a quick expectancy168. He saw nothing of the woman who had startled him that first evening, but he heard from the thicket a sound like muffled169 sobbing170, and he responded again to the sense of a malevolent171 regard.
He hid himself among the trees, and in their shelter skirted the lake. The sobbing had faded into nothing. For a long time he heard only the whispers of the snow and the grief of the wind. When he had rounded the lake and was some distance beyond it, however, the moaning reached him again, and through the fast-deepening twilight he saw, as indistinctly as he had before, a black feminine figure flitting among the trees in the direction of the lake. Graham's theory lost its value. It was impossible to fancy the brilliant, colourful dancer in this black, shadowy thing. He commenced to run in pursuit, calling out:
"Stop! Who are you? Why do you cry through the woods?"
But the dusk was too thick, the forest too eager. The black figure disappeared. In retrospect172 it was again as unsubstantial as a phantom173. The flakes whispered mockingly. The wind was ironical.
He found his pursuit had led him back to the end of the lake nearest the Cedars. He paused. His triumph was not unmixed with fear. A black figure stood in the open, quite close to him, gazing over the stagnant water that was like a veil for sinister174 things. He knew now that the woman was flesh and blood, for she did not glide away, and the snow made pallid175 scars on her black cloak.
He crept carefully forward until he was close behind the black figure.
"Now," he said, "you'll tell me who you are and why you cry about the Cedars."
The woman swung around with a cry. He stepped back, abashed176, not knowing what to say, for there was still enough light to disclose to him the troubled face of Katherine, and there were tears in her eyes as if she might recently have expressed an audible grief.
"You frightened me, Bobby."
Without calculation he spoke his swift thought: "Was it you I saw here before? But surely you didn't cry in the house the other night and afterward when we followed Carlos!"
The tranquil177 beauty of her face was disturbed. When she answered her voice had lost something of its music:
"What do you mean?"
"It was you who cried just now? It was you I saw running through the woods?"
"What do you mean?" she asked again. "I have not run. I—I am not your woman in black, if that's what you think. I happened to pick up this cloak. You've seen it often enough before. And I haven't cried."
She brushed the tears angrily from her eyes.
"At least I haven't cried so any one could hear me. I wanted to walk. I hoped I would find you. I thought you had come this way, so I came, too. Why, Bobby, you're suspecting me of something!"
But the problem of the fugitive178 figure receded179 before the more intimate one of his heart. There was a thrill in her desire to find him in the solitude of the forest.
Only the faintest gray survived in the sky above the trees. The shadows were thick about them. The whispering snow urged him to use this moment for his happiness. It wasn't the thought of Graham that held him back. Last night, under an equal temptation, he might have spoken. To-night a new element silenced him and bound his eager hands. His awakening180 at the head of the stairs raised an obstacle to self-revelation around which there seemed to exist no path.
"I'm sorry. Let us go back," he said.
She looked at him inquiringly.
"What is it, Bobby? You are more afraid to-day than you have ever been before. Has something happened I know nothing of?"
He shook his head. He couldn't increase her own trouble by telling her of that.
The woods seemed to receive an ashy illumination from the passage of the snowflakes. Katherine walked a little faster.
"Don't be discouraged, Bobby," she begged him. "Everything will come out straight. You must keep telling yourself that. You must fight until you believe it."
The nearness of her dusk-clothed, slender figure filled him with a new courage, obscured to an extent his real situation. He burst out impulsively181:
"Don't worry. I'll fight. I'll make myself believe. If necessary I'll tell everything I know in order to find the guilty person."
She placed her hand on his arm. Her voice fell to a whisper.
"Don't fight that way. Uncle Silas is dead; Howells has been taken away. The police will find nothing. By and by they will leave. It will all be forgotten. Why should you keep it active and dangerous by trying to find who is guilty?"
"Katherine!" he cried, surprised. "Why do you say that?"
Her hand left his arm. She walked on without answering. Paredes came back to him—Paredes serenely182 calling attention to the fact that Katherine had alarmed the household and had led it to the discovery of the Cedars's successive mysteries. He shrank from asking her any more.
They left the thicket. In the open space about the house the snow had spread a white mantle183. From it the heavy walls rose black and forbidding.
"I don't want to go in," Katherine said.
Their feet lagged as they followed the driveway to the entrance of the court. The curtains of the room of death, they saw, had been raised. A dim, unhealthy light slipped from the small-paned windows across the court, staining the snow. Robinson and Rawlins were probably searching again.
Suddenly Katherine stopped. She pointed.
"What's that?" she asked sharply.
Bobby followed the direction of her glance. He saw a black patch against the wall of the wing opposite the lighted windows.
"It is a shadow," he said.
She relaxed and they walked on. They entered the court. There she turned, and Bobby stopped, too, with a sudden fear. For the thing he had called a shadow was moving. He stared at it with a hypnotic belief that the Cedars was at last disclosing its supernatural secret. He knew it could be no illusion, since Katherine swayed, half-fainting, against him. The moving shadow assumed the shape of a stout figure, slightly bent at the shoulders. A pipe protruded184 from the bearded mouth. One hand waved a careless welcome.
Bobby's first instinct was to cry out, to command this old man they had seen buried that day to return to his grave. For there wasn't the slightest doubt. The unhealthy candlelight from the room of death shone full on the gray and wrinkled face of Silas Blackburn.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
accomplished
|
|
| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
detention
|
|
| n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
placate
|
|
| v.抚慰，平息(愤怒) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
omen
|
|
| n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
overalls
|
|
| n.（复）工装裤；长罩衣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
fully
|
|
| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
cemetery
|
|
| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
desolate
|
|
| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
funereal
|
|
| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
lessen
|
|
| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
lessens
|
|
| 变少( lessen的第三人称单数 )； 减少（某事物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
decided
|
|
| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
turmoil
|
|
| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
morbid
|
|
| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
automobile
|
|
| n.汽车，机动车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
tinkling
|
|
| n.丁当作响声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
exclamation
|
|
| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
astonishment
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
hack
|
|
| n.劈，砍，出租马车；v.劈，砍，干咳 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
outrageous
|
|
| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
cedars
|
|
| 雪松，西洋杉( cedar的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
tragic
|
|
| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
justifiable
|
|
| adj.有理由的，无可非议的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
trifling
|
|
| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
dilemma
|
|
| n.困境，进退两难的局面 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
disarmed
|
|
| v.裁军( disarm的过去式和过去分词 )；使息怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
arraigned
|
|
| v.告发( arraign的过去式和过去分词 )；控告；传讯；指责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
bail
|
|
| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
awakened
|
|
| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
loomed
|
|
| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
fleeting
|
|
| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
futility
|
|
| n.无用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
mused
|
|
| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
intake
|
|
| n.吸入，纳入；进气口，入口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
sneered
|
|
| 讥笑，冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
cleansing
|
|
| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
stimulation
|
|
| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
prophylactic
|
|
| adj.预防疾病的；n.预防疾病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
indifference
|
|
| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
thicket
|
|
| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
shroud
|
|
| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
dismal
|
|
| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
pensive
|
|
| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
twigs
|
|
| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
simultaneously
|
|
| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
implements
|
|
| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
uncouth
|
|
| adj.无教养的，粗鲁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
grunting
|
|
| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
unnatural
|
|
| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
accusation
|
|
| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
excavation
|
|
| n.挖掘，发掘；被挖掘之地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
ironical
|
|
| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
obliterating
|
|
| v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
inevitable
|
|
| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
apprehension
|
|
| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
ordeal
|
|
| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
imprisonment
|
|
| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
bleak
|
|
| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
guilt
|
|
| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
cuffs
|
|
| n.袖口( cuff的名词复数 )v.掌打，拳打( cuff的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
foliage
|
|
| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
leisurely
|
|
| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
shafts
|
|
| n.轴( shaft的名词复数 )；（箭、高尔夫球棒等的）杆；通风井；一阵（疼痛、害怕等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
wagon
|
|
| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
morass
|
|
| n.沼泽，困境 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
groom
|
|
| vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
curiously
|
|
| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
abominably
|
|
| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
psychic
|
|
| n.对超自然力敏感的人；adj.有超自然力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
disappearance
|
|
| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
bulging
|
|
| 膨胀； 凸出（部）； 打气； 折皱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
sneaking
|
|
| a.秘密的，不公开的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
realization
|
|
| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
kindly
|
|
| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
lessened
|
|
| 减少的，减弱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
bland
|
|
| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
glowering
|
|
| v.怒视( glower的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
unctuous
|
|
| adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
stolid
|
|
| adj.无动于衷的，感情麻木的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
beckoning
|
|
| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
craving
|
|
| n.渴望,热望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
approbation
|
|
| n.称赞；认可 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
entangled
|
|
| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
awe
|
|
| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
wanly
|
|
| adv.虚弱地；苍白地，无血色地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
ashen
|
|
| adj.灰的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
confirmation
|
|
| n.证实，确认，批准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
miraculously
|
|
| ad.奇迹般地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
watchfulness
|
|
| 警惕，留心； 警觉（性） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
magnetism
|
|
| n.磁性，吸引力，磁学 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
antidote
|
|
| n.解毒药，解毒剂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
grotesquely
|
|
| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
dread
|
|
| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
114
slabs
|
|
| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
prone
|
|
| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
dwelling
|
|
| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
degradation
|
|
| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
rattling
|
|
| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
imminence
|
|
| n.急迫，危急 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
rattled
|
|
| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
twilight
|
|
| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
trench
|
|
| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
metallic
|
|
| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
petulance
|
|
| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
poignancy
|
|
| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
penetrate
|
|
| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
presumptuous
|
|
| adj.胆大妄为的，放肆的，冒昧的，冒失的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
resonance
|
|
| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
twitched
|
|
| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
potent
|
|
| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
appraise
|
|
| v.估价，评价，鉴定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
mound
|
|
| n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
bass
|
|
| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
stark
|
|
| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
solitude
|
|
| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
futile
|
|
| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
consultation
|
|
| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
tightened
|
|
| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
luncheon
|
|
| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
afterward
|
|
| adv.后来；以后 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
depressed
|
|
| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
appalled
|
|
| v.使惊骇，使充满恐惧( appall的过去式和过去分词)adj.惊骇的；丧胆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
dreary
|
|
| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
machinery
|
|
| n.(总称)机械，机器；机构 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
gathering
|
|
| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
density
|
|
| n.密集，密度，浓度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
grumbled
|
|
| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
slits
|
|
| n.狭长的口子，裂缝( slit的名词复数 )v.切开，撕开( slit的第三人称单数 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
hoarsely
|
|
| adv.嘶哑地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
glide
|
|
| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
shrugged
|
|
| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
determinedly
|
|
| adv.决意地；坚决地，坚定地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
penetrating
|
|
| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
uneven
|
|
| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
flakes
|
|
| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
sifted
|
|
| v.筛( sift的过去式和过去分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
swollen
|
|
| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
heralds
|
|
| n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
smothering
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的现在分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
discomfort
|
|
| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
computing
|
|
| n.计算 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
thoroughly
|
|
| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
impending
|
|
| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
stagnant
|
|
| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
proximity
|
|
| n.接近，邻近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
caresses
|
|
| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
expectancy
|
|
| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
muffled
|
|
| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
sobbing
|
|
| <主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
malevolent
|
|
| adj.有恶意的，恶毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
retrospect
|
|
| n.回顾，追溯；v.回顾，回想，追溯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
phantom
|
|
| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
sinister
|
|
| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
pallid
|
|
| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
abashed
|
|
| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
tranquil
|
|
| adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
fugitive
|
|
| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
receded
|
|
| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
awakening
|
|
| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
impulsively
|
|
| adv.冲动地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
serenely
|
|
| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
mantle
|
|
| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
protruded
|
|
| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |