24
The Dark OtherIt was early in the evening, not yet eight o'clock, when Pat saw the car of Nicholas Devine draw up before the house. She had already been watching half an hour, sitting cross-legged in the deep window seat, like her jade Buddha. That equivocal poem of his had disturbed her, lent an added strength to the moods and doubts already implanted by Magda's mystical tale, and it was with a feeling of trepidation that she watched him emerge wearily from his vehicle and stare in indecision first at her window and then at the Horker residence. The waning daylight was still sufficient to delineate his worn features; she could see them, pale, harried, but indubitably the mild features of her own Nick.
While he hesitated, she darted to the door and out upon the porch. He gave her a wa
