Either he must stay or go back with the haunting conviction that this hungry-eyed old fiend who could strum with diabolic skill upon the sensitive strings of his very soul, would propel himself in his wheel-chair to the stairway, there to sit like a ghoul at the top.

Rain beat in Kenny's ears like a trumpet of doom.
He felt sick and dizzy.

No! with the memory of that last wonderful moment when the music had blended into the fire of his tenderness, he could not go back.

Invisible, Adam Craig would still be pervasive.

He would jar the idyl into a mockery, the indefinable malignity of him, alert and silent up there at the head of the stairs, floating down like an evil wind to mingle with the reminiscent sound of rain.
"Well ?" said the old man softly.
"Oh, my God!" said Kenny, wiping his forehead.