I will not die.
I will live - live -'"Miss Slater told me all this when I came to see her six months later."'My poor Raoul,' she said kindly. 'You loved her, did you not?'"
"'Always - always.
But of what use could I be to her?
Let us not talk of it. She is dead - she so brilliant, so full of burning life...'"Miss Slater was a sympathetic woman.
She went on to talk of other things.
She was very worried about Felicie, so she told me.
The girl had had a queer sort of nervous breakdown and ever since she had been very strange in manner."'You know,' said Miss Slater, after a momentary hesitation, 'that she is learning the piano?'"I did not know it and was very much surprised to hear it.
Felicie - learning the piano!
I would have declared the girl would not know one note from another."'She has talent, they say,' continued Miss Slater. 'I can't understand it.
I have always put her down as - well, Raoul, you know yourself, she was always a stupid girl.'"I nodded."'She is so strange in her manner I don't know what to make of it.'"A few minutes later I entered the Salle de Lecture.
Felicie was playing the piano.
She was playing the air that I had heard Annette sing in Paris.
You understand, Messieurs, it gave me quite a turn.
And then, hearing me, she broke off suddenly and looked round at me, her eyes full of mockery and intelligence.
For a moment I thought - Well, I will not tell you what I thought."'Tiens!' she said.
'So it is you - Monsieur Raoul.'"I cannot describe the way she said it.
To Annette I had never ceased to be Raoul.
But Felicie, since we had met as grown-ups, always addressed me as Monsieur Raoul.
But the way she said it now was different - as though the Monsieur, slightly stressed, was somehow amusing."'Why, Felicie,' I stammered, 'you look quite different today.'"'Do I?' she said reflectively. 'It is odd, that.
But do not be so solemn, Raoul - decidedly I shall call you Raoul - did we not play together as children?
- Life was made for laughter.
Let us talk of the poor Annette - she who is dead and buried.
Is she in Purgatory, I wonder, or where?'"And she hummed a snatch of song - untunefully enough, but the words caught my attention."'Felicie!'
I cried. 'You speak Italian?'"'Why not, Raoul?
I am not as stupid as I pretend to be, perhaps.'
She laughed at my mystification."'I don't understand -' I began."'But I will tell you.
I am a very fine actress, though no one suspects it.
I can play many parts - and play them very well.'"She laughed again and ran quickly out of the room before I could stop her."I saw her again before I left.
She was asleep in an armchair. She was snoring heavily.
I stood and watched her, fascinated, yet repelled.
Suddenly she woke with a start.
Her eyes, dull and lifeless, met mine."'Monsieur Raoul,' she muttered mechanically."'Yes, Felicie.
I am going now.
Will you play for me again before I go?'"'I?
Play?
You are laughing at me, Monsieur Raoul.'"'Don't you remember playing for me this morning?'"She shook her head."'I play?
How can a poor girl like me play?'"She paused for a minute as though in thought, then beckoned me nearer."'Monsieur Raoul, there are things going on in this house!
They play tricks upon you.
They alter the clocks.
Yes, yes, I know what I am saying.
And it is all her doing.'"'Whose doing?' I asked, startled."'That Annette's.
That wicked one's.
When she was alive she always tormented me.
Now that she is dead, she comes back from the dead to torment me.'"I stared at Felicie.
I could see now that she was in an extremity of terror, her eyes starting from her head."'She is bad, that one.
She is bad, I tell you.
She would take the bread from your mouth, the clothes from your back, the soul from your body...'"She clutched me suddenly."'I am afraid, I tell you - afraid.
I hear her voice - not in my ear - no, not in my ear. Here, in my head -' She tapped her forehead. 'She will drive me away - drive me away altogether, and then what shall I do, what will become of me?'"Her voice rose almost to a shriek.
She had in her eyes the look of the terrified beast at bay..."Suddenly she smiled, a pleasant smile, full of cunning, with something in it that made me shiver."'If it should come to it, Monsieur Raoul, I am very strong with my hands - very strong with my hands.'"I had never noticed her hands particularly before.