Haunted Castles by Ray Russell

watched with consuming fascination as that clenched face slowly softened, relaxed, changed; the lips drawing closer and closer to each other, gradually covering those naked teeth and gums, the graven creases unfolding and becoming smooth. Before a minute had passed, we were looking down upon the face of a serenely handsome man. His eyes flashed with pleasure, and he made as if to speak.
    â€œNo,” I said, “do not attempt speech yet. The muscles of your face are so slackened that it is beyond your power, at present, to move your lips. This condition will pass.” My voice rang with exultation, and for the moment our enmity was forgotten. He nodded, then leapt from the table and dashed to a mirror which hung on a wall nearby.
    Though his face could not yet express his joy, his whole body seemed to unfurl in a great gesture of triumph and a muffled cry of happiness burst in his throat.
    He turned and seized my hand; then he looked full into Maude’s face. After a moment, she said, “I am happy for you, sir,” and looked away. A rasping laugh sounded in his throat, and he walked to my work bench, tore a leaf from one of my notebooks, and scribbled upon it. This he handed to Maude, who read it and passed it to me. The writing said:
    Fear not, lady. You will not be obliged to endure my embraces. I know full well that the restored beauty of my face will weigh not a jot in the balance of your attraction and repugnance. By this document, I dissolve our pristine marriage. You who have been a wife only in name are no longer even that. I give you your freedom.
    I looked up from my reading. Sardonicus had been writing again. He ripped another leaf from the notebook and handed it directly to me. It read:
    This paper is your safe conduct out of the castle and into the village. Gold is yours for the asking, but I doubt if your English scruples will countenance the accepting of my money. I will expect you to have quit these premises before morning, taking her with you.
    â€œWe will be gone within the hour,” I told him, and guided Maude towards the door. Before we left the room, I turned for the last time to Sardonicus.
    â€œFor your unclean threats,” I said; “for the indirect but no less vicious murder of this lady’s parents; for the defiling of your own father’s grave; for the greed and inhumanity that moved you even before your blighted face provided you with an excuse for your conduct; for these and for what crimes unknown to me blacken your ledger—accept this token of my censure and detestation.” I struck him forcibly on the face. He did not respond. He was standing there in the laboratory when I left the room with Maude.

IX
NOT GOD ABOVE NOR THE FIEND BELOW
    T his strange account should probably end here. No more can be said of its central character, for neither Maude nor I saw him or heard of him after that night. And of us two, nothing need be imparted other than the happy knowledge that we have been most contentedly married for the past twelve years and are the parents of a sturdy boy and two girls who are the lovely images of their mother.
    However, I have mentioned my friend Lord Henry Stanton, the inveterate traveller and faithful letter writer, and I must copy out now a portion of a missive I received from him only a week since, and which, in point of fact, has been the agent that has prompted me to unfold this whole history of Mr. Sardonicus:
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    â€œ. . . But, my dear Bobbie,” wrote Stanton, “in truth there is small pleasure to be found in this part of the world, and I shall be glad to see London again. The excitements and the drama have all departed (if, indeed, they ever existed) and one must content one’s self with the stories told at the hearthstones of inns, with the flames crackling and the mulled wine agreeably stinging one’s throat. The natives here are most fond of harrowing stories, tales of gore and grue, of ghosts and ghouls and