E Phillips Oppenheim

The Yellow Crayon E Phillips Oppenheim

It was late summer-time, and the perfume of flowers stole into the darkened roomthrough the half-opened window. The sunlight forced its way through a chink in the blind, and stretched across the floor in strange zigzag fashion. From without came the pleasantmurmur of bees and many lazier insects floating over the gorgeous flower beds, resting fora while on the clematis which had made the piazza a blaze of purple splendour. And inside, in a high-backed chair, there sat a man, his arms folded, his eyes fixed steadily uponvacancy. As he sat then, so had he sat for a whole day and a whole night. The faint sweetchorus of glad living things, which alone broke the deep silence of the house, seemedneither to disturb nor interest him. He sat there like a man turned to stone, his foreheadriven by one deep line, his straight firm mouth set close and hard. His servant, the onlyliving being who had approached him, had set food by his side, which now and then he hadmechanically taken. Changeless as a sphinx, he had sat there in darkness and in light, whilstsunlight had changed to moonlight, and the songs of the birds had given place to the lowmurmuring of frogs from a lake below the lawns. At last it seemed that his unnatural fit had passed away. He stretched out his hand andstruck a silver gong which had been left within his reach. Almost immediately a man, palefaced, with full dark eyes and olive complexion, dressed in the sombre garb of an indoorservant, stood at his elbow."Duson.""Your Grace!""Bring wine-Burgundy."It was before him, served with almost incredible despatch-a small cobwebbed bottleand a glass of quaint shape, on which were beautifully emblazoned a coronet and fleur-delis. He drank slowly and deliberately. When he set the glass down it was empt