Step by step Simpkins advanced on the black altar, his muscles rigid,
his nerves quivering, his eyes staring straight ahead, as a child stares
into the dark for some awful shape which it fears to see, yet dares not
leave unseen. Once past that altar he would be safe at the door of the
storeroom.
How his heart was beating! He was almost at it. Steady! A few steps now
and he would gain the storeroom. Good God! What was that!
In the blackness behind the altar two eyes flamed.
Simpkins stopped; he was helpless to turn or to advance. Perhaps if he
did not move, it would not. A moment he stood there, tense with terror,
then--straight from the altar the thing flew at his throat. But quick as
it was: the involuntary jerk of his arm upward was quicker, and it
received the blow. Snarling, the thing fell to the floor, and leaped
back into the darkness. It was Mrs. Athelstone's cat.
So strong was Simpkins' revulsion of feeling, so great his relief, that
he forgot the real cause of his terror, and sank down on the very steps
of the altar, weakly exclaiming over and over again: "Only the cat! Only
the cat! Great Scott! how it frightened me!"
He had been sitting there for a few minutes when he heard a soft click,
click, just to his right. Some one was turning a key in the door leading
from Mrs.
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