A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine, October 1950 — page 70: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ELIXIR OF HATE 69 futile attempts, each of which he tore up and flung into the waste-basket he framed this missive: My loved one: Unavoidable business calls me away from you for a few days. Much as I hate to leave you for even so short a time, | must. When 1 shall be with you again, | cannot say, but tt will be very soon—at the very earliest possible mom- ent. Ask no questions, my most dear one. Have no fears, no doubts. Heaven hes before us. What a future shall be ours! A thousand times I kiss you. Au revoir! Granville This he sealed, addressed, and, steal- ing a-tiptoe out along the hallway, thrust v.ith trembling fingers beneath her door. For a moment he stood there, head bowed, eyes closed, in silent farewell. Then he bent, and very gently kissed a panel of his sweetheart’s door. ““Good-by!”” he whispered. ‘‘My love, my soul! Good-by. God grant it may be not forever!” Ten minutes later he had escaped si- lently from the house, traversed the gar- den, let himself out of the gate, and, swinging his satchel bravely, was strid- ing down the mountain in the clear glow of early morning. He caught the six-twelve Mediter- ranean Paris express, which would land him that same afternoon in the capital. A little study of the ‘Guide Jaune” in- formed him that Alfort, where lay Pro- fessor Gabriel Petit’s laboratories, was a small town some two miles outside the Paris fortifications to southwest of the city. “I shall be there this evening,’ he as- sured himself. “From Petit’s lips, at whatever cost, I shall learn the proper method of applying this lead treatment. Till then, patience!’’ But though he bought all the illustrated reviews and tried to immerse himself in them, gnawing fear and anxiety still dogged him. Before him rose visions of the rock-chamber and the line of eighteen coffins. “Oh, my soul!” he breathed, gazing with terror-haunted eye at the speeding valley of the Rhone. ‘Oh, my soul! When will this torture end?” Stasia, meanwhile—having found and, with tear-dimmed eyes, read his note— had made pitifully undiplomatic inquiries of her uncle. | Il Vecchio soothed her with a smile. Laying a hand upon her head, he an- swered : “Have no fear, my child. Never have any fear. He will return. He cannot stay away for long. I tell you that be cause I know it. I swear it to you! With- in a week he will be with you, here, once more.” “But, uncle, why—?” “Ask no more, Stasia! All in good time you shall know this—and many other things. Now, leave me. I must be alone!” Then as the girl, disconsolate and lone- ly, wandered out with sad longings into the mockery of that sunlit garden, the patriarch took down his volume of hiero- glyphic records and set to work making an extended entry. His smile, as he bent over this unholy work, was one such as no man might wish a second time to look upon. CHAPTER 20 Two Ounces of Cyanid VEN sooner than the old man had kK predicted, Dennison returned. For on the evening of the fifth day, pale and furtive and notably even young- er-looking than when he had taken such unceremonious leave, he scaled the wall, dropped into the high grass, and, peering about him like a thief, crept toward the old-fashioned house. A moment he halted in the shadows of the olive-grove, to spy out the approach. The billious moon, just rising, cast a reddish, dull glow over everything. Den- nison seemed to fear even that uncertain light. ‘If only—if only she doesn't see me!” he whispered, eagerly sweeping the open space of lawn, the paths and flower-beds with anxious eyes. ‘“‘She—she mustn't!” Careful inspection satished him the wa was clear to ll Vecchio’s study door. And. assuring himself by the light which burned within, showing through the long sea- ian) (C 6)(0)©) Ss (C(O)