CHAPTER VI
Tragedy
Four days and nights had passed since Arnold Gilmour had locked the professor in his bedroom, and as dawn came upon the fifth day, Gilmour stood brooding through the kitchen window with deep-sunk eyes.
He seemed to have aged a score of years since the day of his arrival at the Mount House. He stood with bent body and unshaven face, a different being from the young man who had walked through the scented gardens with life and love in his heart. Those relays to him were years ago, if they ever had been at all!
Since the beginning of the nightmare, he had had but a few brief snatches of sleep in which he awake suddenly with a pounding heart and a great fear for his sanity. His brain ached with the usual never-ending monotony, and as he thought of the past few days, he knew that there was madness somewhere.
The first night he had spent huddled over a small fire in the servants' kitchen, drinking coffee and smoking endless cigarettes. The next morning he had seen Jean; he refused or could not think of her as a boy. The youth had appeared, fresh and cheerful in the early morning, and had become surprised and pained at Gilmour's attitude. Arnold had tried in every way to reach some last remnants of his former sweetheart-but he could not. It was impossible, ridiculous, humiliating. He was talking to a man, and while the younger Neville was quite aware and fully remembered his former love for Gilmour, he now had the mind of a man. He sympathized with Arnold, but felt no regrets for the love that was gone; indeed, he was too enraptured with the novelty and the possibilities of his new life to consider Gilmour's torture deeply. Inwardly he regarded his female existence and his love for Gilmour as rather a foolish joke which was now over and should be forgotten.
He bad inquired about his father, and was concerned about his abrupt manner the previous night, and it became obvious to Gilmour that the youth was beginning to regard him as a nuisance, and made him feel like a man who has overstayed his welcome.
It was after the youth had been to Neville's bedroom and returned, suspiciously demanding the key from Gilmour, that the latter had overpowered him, and with a strength that Arnold never had before, he carried him to the highest room in the house and locked him in.
The days that followed he spent like a watching beast, prowling between Neville's room and that of the boy's. Sometimes, as on the second day, he would sit outside the Professor's bedroom and listen to his cries from behind the door. Desperately the old man fought against the effects of the serum; piteously he groveled under the door and begged his jailer to see reason. But Gilmour would not even speak to him; the most he would do was push scraps of food and water through the slightly opened doorway.
As f or the young Neville, he had wasted his energy storming around the attic and moaning, much alarmed for the fate of his father, until Gilmour had become impatient and half-strangled him. It was only by Arnold suddenly remembering that he was choking the body of his sweetheart that he stopped. But it quieted the youth and afterwards he took the food that Gilmour gave him and sometimes humbly asked for books to while the time away.
The third day there was silence in Neville's room and when Gilmour pushed the food in, he saw only a thin hand reach out to take it.
The next day Arnold had an idea, and going through the servants' quarters, he found a room which he knew belonged to the absent housekeeper. After a few minutes, he came out with a sardonic smile upon his face and a bundle of clothes under his arm.
These he pushed into the room with the daily supply of food. But no hand appeared to take his offerings, so he gently closed the door and sat upon the floor, listening through the keyhole, his features like that of an animal and fixed with a wolfish grin.
And now, as he stood in the grey light, brooding through the window at the dew covered rose trees, he resolved to bring this madness to an end. He felt calmer and more sober than he had ever been since the first horrible day. Shortly he would bring Neville from his room and see how the serum worked. He feared this and it made him fidget nervously. Deep in his heart he had long since regretted his rash deed, but his determination to make Neville suffer as he was obstinately overruled his reason.
As long as he lived, it would do the scientist not to play with other people's bodies again, thought Arnold bitterly. Then despite the weariness of his soul, he became more cheerful as he made his plans.
He had great faith in the professor's scientific powers. It would not be long before Neville made another injection of the serum, for the youth, and then Jeanette would return to him once more. He glowed inwardly; it was as though life flowed back to his bones when he thought of this and his face became almost young again.
As the morning came and the sun rose in the sky, stirring the gardens to life and all their scented glory, Gilmour brewed himself some coffee and after nibbling a little food, he made his way up to the attic.
At first he avoided Neville's room, for he had an idea of making the younger Neville see, too, just what he had suffered before sending his horrible and unwanted maleness back to the place from whence it came.
Arnold knocked upon the door, then half opened it. "Come out," he ordered harshly; he had no name for the boy. "I want you!"
A short interval elapsed before the youth emerged cautiously, and with the air of one who humours a madman, he inquired the reason for the disturbance.
Gilmour chuckled mirthlessly, "Come and see," he answered, 'come and see what the Seventh Serum does; as a student of physiology, you'll be very interested."
The youth made no reply but followed his one-time sweetheart to Neville's room with a puzzled look upon is face.