The Place Called Dagon by Herbert Gorman

Dreeme heard the solemn-toned clock in the Slater house striking as he pushed his own unlatched door open and stepped into the narrow hall. One hollow sound. A single and ineffectual blow at the starlit night. It must be eleven-thirty, he thought, for Walden Slater had mumbled something about ten-thirty when he had paused at the back piazza an hour before. Time for all good men to go to bed. Time for all good men to come to the aid of their party. After he pulled the door shut behind him and shot the bolt and turned around he realized that the lamp was glowing in his little study. For an instant he stood in stupid perplexity, wondering how he could have been so excited as to leave the light aflare and the door ajar when he had hastened forth two hours ago to the burned mill. Was he actually as absentminded as that? "I didn't leave them so," he said to himself, shaping the words silently with his lips, and then walked slowly along the hall to the study. Through the angle of the partially opened door he could see a patch of black dress against which a long white hand hung languidly, the fingers idly curled. He stopped and observed it, not with surprise -- indeed, subconsciously he had expected it -- but with a vague distaste that wrinkled his forehead and tightened his lips. She was sitting in a listening attitude waiting for him to turn the corner of the door. He was tempted to turn and walk out hastily, letting her have the house to herself until the loneliness and weariness of waiting forced her to return to her own home. He was tired and didn't want to talk. He had ridden a wave of excitement all day, a towering tidal wave that had swept him high and far, and now he was exhausted, let down, filled with the glow of a faint triumph, to be sure, but pleasantly hollow inside. He was like a swimmer who had outreached his strength but achieved some goal in the endeavor. He desired nothing more than to climb into his bed, stretched out beneath the great square patches of the coverlet, and sleep dreamlessly, to renew his benumbed faculties for the day that was to follow. What on earth could she have to say to him now? Had his attitude not settled everything last night when he had left her at the mill without turning back? She had called him a miserable coward. Well, let her think so. Perhaps that was the safest way for him. All he desired now was to get out of the valley with Deborah. Let them continue as they willed with their own theories. They were all mad and perhaps it would be a good thing if they killed each other off in the process of their lunacies. His curiosity about them was sleepy now. The unrest that had pervaded him at the thought of the mystery hovering over Marlborough was slothful. It was more important to go out into that real world with Deborah and begin to live. Here, he was in a valley of shadows. He stood, therefore, in the shelter of the door peering through at the lighted room in sleepy impatience and lethargic anger. She sat there listening. She knew he was lurking just out of her sight. He could see her hand crumple up in irritation.

"Will you come in? " she said in a low husky impatient voice.