Steady and
undaunted was my gaze--motionless my attitude. I marveled at
myself, but in that agony of sickening terror I was OUTWARDLY firm.
They sink, they quail, abashed, those dreadful eyes, before the
gaze of a helpless girl; and the shame that is never absent from
insanity bears down the pride of strength, the bloody cravings of
the wild beast. The lunatic moaned and drooped his shaggy head
between his gaunt, squalid hands.
I lost not an instant. I rose, and with one spring reached the
door, tore it open, and, with a shriek, rushed through, caught the
wondering girl by the arm, and crying to her to run for her life,
rushed like the wind along the gallery, down the corridor, down the
stairs. Mary's screams filled the house as she fled beside me. I
heard a long-drawn, raging cry, the roar of a wild animal mocked of
its prey, and I knew what was behind me. I never turned my head--I
flew rather than ran. I was in the hall already; there was a rush
of many feet, an outcry of many voices, a sound of scuffling feet,
and brutal yells, and oaths, and heavy blows, and I fell to the
ground crying, "Save me!" and lay in a swoon.
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