Tyranny of the Dark

Surely Simeon's house that night was a place of tormenting and tumult--the meeting-place of spirits whose dispositions were to evil fully inclined, and of mortals whose natures were upon the edge of combat. Viola, in full revolt, would not even permit her mother to come to her. Clarke, in an agony of love and hate, paced his room or sat in dejected heap before his grate. Mrs. Lambert, realizing that something sorrowful was advancing upon her, lay awake a long time hoping her daughter would relent and steal in to kiss her good-night, but she did not, and at last the waters of sleep rolled in to submerge and carry away her cares.

Viola, made restless by her disgust of Pratt as well as by her loss of respect and confidence in Clarke, did not lose herself till nearly dawn. Her mind was at first busy with the past, filled with a procession of the many things he had done to enrich her life. She was troubled by the remembrance of the grave, sad courtesy of his intercourse in the days just following his wife's death. At that time his kindly supervision of her music and his suggestions for her reading had given him dignity and romantic charm. "He was nice then," she said to herself. "If only he had stopped there." When he fell at her feet in the attempt to rouse her pity he had been degraded in her eyes. His whole manner towards her became that of suppliant--beseeching the "guides" to sanction their ultimate union. She burned with shame as she thought of her tacit acquiescence in this arrangement. "You have no right to interfere with my--with such things," she now said to the invisible ones. "I do not love Anthony Clarke. I don't even respect him any longer."

He had, indeed, become almost as offensive to her as Pratt, and the picturesque, soulful presence which he affected was at the moment repugnant. In contrast to the young scientist he was mentally and morally sick, and the world which he inhabited (and which she shared with him) hopelessly askew. Of this she had a clear perception as her mind recalled and dwelt upon the taste, the comfort, the orderly cheer of the Serviss home.

"We never made the spirit-world so awful. Mamma did not take such an excited view of it all. What has produced this change in us? Tony has. He has carried us out into a nasty world and he has set us among frauds and fanatics, and I will not suffer it any longer."

She did him an injustice, but she was at the same time right. Mrs. Lambert, left to herself, would have kept a serene mind no matter what the manifestations might be. With her the world of spirit interpenetrated the world of every-day life, and the one was quite as natural as the other and of helpful, cheering effect. She had remained quite as normal in her ways of thought as when in Colorow, and aside from her dependence upon the spirit-world for guidance would not have seemed at any point to be akin to either fraud or fanatic.