THE THING FROM THE LAKE

by

ELEANOR M. INGRAM

Author of "From the Car Behind", "The Unafraid", etc. 

Copyright, 1921, by J. B. Lippincott CompanyPrinted by J. B. Lippincott Companyat the Washington Square PressPhiladelphia, U. S. A. 

CHAPTER I

 "As well give up the Bible at once, as our belief in apparitions. "--WESLEY. 

The house cried out to me for help. 

In the after-knowledge I now possess of what was to happen there, thatimpression is not more clearly definite than it was at my first sight ofthe place. Let me at once set down that this is not the story of ahaunted house. It is, or was, a beleaguered house; strangely besieged aswas Prague in the old legend, when a midnight army of spectres unfurledpale banners and encamped around the city walls. 

Of course, I did not know all this, the day that my real-estate agentbrought his little car to a stop before the dilapidated farm. I believedthe house only appealed to be lived in; for deliverance from thedestroying work of neglect and time. A spring rain was whispering downfrom a gray sky, dripping from broken gutters and eaves with a patterlike timid footsteps hurrying by, yet even in the storm the house didnot look dreary. 

"There, Mr. Locke, is a bargain, " the agent called back to me, where Isat in my car. "Finest bit in Connecticut for a city man's summer home!Woodland, farm land, lake and a house that only needs a few repairs tobe up-to-date. Look at that double row of maples, sir. Shade all summer!Fine old orchard, too; with a trifle of attention. "

I nodded, surveying the house with an eagerness of interest thatsurprised myself. A box-like, fairly large structure of commonplace NewEngland ugliness, it coaxed my liking as had no other place I had everseen; it wooed me like a determined woman. And as one would long toclothe beautifully a beloved woman, I looked at the house and foresawwhat an architect could do for it; how creamy stucco; broad whiteporches and a gay scarlet roof would transform it. 

"Come inside, " my agent urged, hope in his voice as he observed my face;"let me show you the interior. I brought the keys along. Of course, therooms may seem a bit musty. No one has lived in it for--some time. It'sthe old Michell property; been in the family for a couple of hundredyears. Last Michell is dead, now, and it's being sold for the benefit ofsome religious institute the old gentleman left it to. Trifle wet towalk over the land today! But I've a plan and measurements in myportfolio. "

I said that we would go in. If he had but known the fact, the place wasalready sold to me; before I left my car, before I entered the house, before I had seen the hundred-odd acres that make up the estate. 

There was a narrow, flagged path to the veranda, where the plankingmoved and creaked under our weight while my companion unlocked the frontdoor. Rather astonishingly, the air of the long-closed place was neithermusty nor damp, when we stepped in. Instead, there was a faint, resinousodor, very pleasant and clean; perhaps from the cedar of which thewoodwork largely consisted. 

The house was partially furnished. Not, of course, with much that Iwould care to retain, but a few good antiques stood out among theircommonplace associates. A large bedroom on the north side, which Iappointed as my own at first sight, held an old rosewood set including afour-posted, pineapple-carved bed. I threw open the shutters in thisroom and looked out. 

I received the first jar to my satisfaction. On this side of the place, the grounds ran down a slight slope for perhaps half a block to thefive-acre hollow of shallow water and lush growth which the agent calleda lake. From it flowed a considerable creek, winding behind the houseand away on its journey to the Sound. For that under-water marsh I felta shock of violent dislike. 

"You don't care for the lake?" my companion deprecated, at my elbow. "Fine trout in that stream, though! I'd like you to see it in thesunshine. "

"I should care more for it if it was a lake, not a swamp, " I answered. 

"Oh, but that is only because the old dam is down, " he exclaimedeagerly. "That lets all the water out, you see. Why, if the dam were putback, you'd have as pretty a lake for a canoe as there is in the State!Its natural depth is four or five feet all over, and about eight or tenwhere the stream flows through to the dam. Even yet, a few wild duckstop there spring and fall, and when I was a boy I've seen heron. Putback the dam, Mr. Locke, and I'll guarantee you'll never say swampagain!"

"We will try it, " I said. "Now let us find a lawyer and see how quicklyI can be put in possession. "

We drove back to the little town from which we had that morning startedout, and where my agent lived; my sleek car following his small one withsomewhat the effect of a long-limbed panther striding behind an agitatedmouse. 

It appeared that the sale was simply consummated. I do not mean that allthe formalities were completed in a day. But by nightfall I could feelmyself the owner of the place. 

Perhaps it was the giddiness of being a land-owner for the first time, or perhaps it was the abject wretchedness of the only hotel in town thatinspired the whim which seized me during my solitary dinner. I had spentone night here, and did not welcome the prospect of a second. A returnto New York was not practicable, because I had arranged to meet severalcontractors and an architect at the farm, next morning, to discuss thealterations I wanted made. Why not drive out to my new house thisevening and sleep tonight in the rosewood-furnished bedroom?

The idea gained favor as I contemplated it. I could go over the housetonight and sketch more clearly what I wanted done, while I would be onthe ground when my men arrived next morning. There was an allure ofcamping out about it, too. 

In the end I went, of course. 

It was dark when I stabled my roadster in the barn that was part of mynew possessions; where the car seemed to glitter disdain of thehay-littered, ragged shelter. Equipped with a flashlight, suitcase andbundle, I followed a faint path that wound its way to the house throughwet blackberry vines whose thorns had outlived the winter. My stepsbroke the blank silence that brooded over the place. At this seasonthere was no insect life; nor any other stirring thing within hearing orsight. But just as I stepped upon the veranda, I heard a vague soundfrom the lake that lay a few hundred feet to the north. There was nowind, yet the water had seemed to move with a sound like the smacking ofsoft, glutinous lips. Or as if some soft body drew itself from a bed ofclinging mud. I wondered idly if the tide could run this far back fromLong Island Sound. 

The house reiterated the impression of welcoming me. I shut and lockedthe old door behind me, and went up to the room I had chosen as my own. There I unshuttered and opened the windows, lighted one of the candles Ihad brought and set it on a little bookcase filled with dingy volumes, and threw my blankets on the bed. I had moved in!

My pleasant sense of proprietorship continued to grow. Before I thoughtof sleep, I had been through the house several times from cellar toattic and accumulated a list of things to be done. Back in my room, anhour passed in revising the list, by candle-light. 

Near ten o'clock, I rolled myself in a dressing-gown and my blankets, spread an automobile robe over the four-posted bed, and fell asleep. 

CHAPTER II

 "Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks. " --SHELLEY (_Trans. _). 

It trailed suavely through my fingers, slipping across my palm like abelt of silk. It glided with the noiseless haste of a thing in flight. Quite naturally, even in the dazed moment of awakening I closed my handupon it. It was soft in my grasp, yet resilient; solid, yet supple. If Imay speak irrationally, it felt as if it must be fragrant. It was astrange visitor to my experience, yet I recognized its identityunerringly as a blind man gaining sight might identify a flower or abird. In brief, it was--it only could be an opulent braid of hair. 

When I grasped it, it ceased to move. 

In the dense darkness of my bedroom, I lay still and considered. I wasalone, or rather, should have been alone in the old house I had boughtthe day before. The agent assured me that it had been unoccupied foryears. Who, then, was my guest? A passer-by seeking refuge in asupposedly deserted house would hardly have moved about with such silentcaution. A tramp of this genus would be a rarity indeed. I had nothingwith me of value to attract a thief. The usual limited masculinejewelry--a watch, a pair of cuff-links, a modest pin--surely were notsufficiently tempting to snare so dainty a bird of prey as one wearingsuch plumage as I held. I have not a small fist, yet that braid was agenerous handful. How did it come to trail across my bed, in any case?And why was its owner locked in silence and immobility? Surely startledinnocence would have cried out, questioned my grasp or struggled againstit! My captive did neither. 

I began to paint a picture against the darkness; the picture of acrouching woman, fear-paralyzed; not daring to stir, to sob or pant orshiver lest she betray herself. Or, perhaps, a woman who was not hushedby panic, but by deliberation. A woman who slowly levelled a weapon, assuring her aim in the blank darkness by such guides as my breathingand the taut direction of her imprisoned tresses. An ugly woman couldnot have such hair as this. Or, could she? I had a doubtful recollectionof various long-haired demonstrators glimpsed in drugshop windows, whowere not beautiful. Yes, but they would never have found themselves insuch a situation as this one! Only resolve or recklessness could bring awoman to such a pass; and with spirit and this hair no woman could beugly. 

How quiet she was! I suddenly reflected that she must be thinking thesame thing of me, since neither of us had moved during a considerablespace of time. Possibly she fancied me only half-aroused, and hoped thatI would relapse into sleep without realizing upon what my drowsy grasphad closed. No doubt it would have been the course of chivalry for me topretend to do so, but it was not the course of curiosity. 

The deadlock could not last indefinitely. Apparently, though, it must beI who should break it. As quietly as possible, I brought my left handforward to grope along that silken line which certainly must guide me tothe intruder herself. My hand slipped along the smooth surface to thefull reach of my arm; and encountered nothing. Check, for the firstattempt! The candle and matches I had bought in the village were alsobeyond my reach, unless I released my captive and rolled across the bedtoward the little bookcase where I had placed them beside theflashlight. If I should speak, what would she do? And--a newthought!--was she alone in the house?

There came a gentle draw at the braid, instantly ceasing as Iautomatically tightened my hold. The pretense that I slept was ended. Ispoke, as soothingly and kindly as I could manage. 

"If you will let me strike a light, we can explain to each other. Or, ifyou will agree not to escape----?"

In spite of my efforts, my voice boomed startlingly through the dark, still room. No reply followed, but the braid quivered and suddenlyrelaxed from its tension. She must have come closer to me. Delighted byso much success attained and intrigued by the novelty of the adventure, I moved slightly, stretching my free arm in the direction of theflashlight. 

"I am not a difficult person, " I essayed encouragement. "Nor too dull, Ihope, to understand a mistake or a necessity. Nor am I affiliated withthe police! Permit me----"

I halted abruptly. A cool edge of metal had been laid across the wristof my groping hand. As the hand came to rest, palm uppermost, I couldfeel, or imagined I could feel my pulse beating steadily against themenacing pressure of the blade. The warning was eloquent and sufficient;I moved no further toward my flashlight. Of course, if I had lifted myright hand from its guard of the braid, I could easily have pinioned thearm which poised the knife before I suffered much harm. But I might havelost my captive in the attempt; an event for which I was not ready, yet. 

"Check, " I admitted. "Although, it is rather near a stalemate for usboth, isn't it?"

The knife pressed closer, suggestively. 

"No, " I dissented with the mute argument. "I think not. I do not believeyou could do it; not in cold blood, anyway!"

"You do not know, " insisted the closer pressing blade, as if with atongue. 

"No, I do not know, " I translated aloud. "But I am confident enough tochance it. What reason have you for desperate action? I would not harmyou. Have I not a right to curiosity? This is my house, you know. Orperhaps you did not know that?"

A sigh stirred the silence, blending with the ceaseless whisper of therain that had recommenced through the night. The braid did not move inmy right hand, nor did the blade touching my left. 

"Speak!" I begged, with an abrupt urgency that surprised myself. "Youare the invader. Why? What would you have from me? If I am to let yougo, at least speak to me, first! This is--uncanny. "

"There is magic in the third time of asking, " came a breathed, justaudible whisper. "Yet, be warned; call not to you that which you mayneither hold nor forbid. "

"But I do call--if that will make you speak to me, " I returned, mypulses tingling triumph. "Although, as to not holding you----"

"You fancy you hold me? It is not you who are master of this moment, butI who am its mistress. "

Her voice had gained in strength; a soft voice, yet not weak, used witha delicate deliberation that gave her speech the effect of being acaprice of her own rather than a result of my compulsion. Yet, Ithought, she must be crouched or kneeling beside me, on the floor, heldlike the Lady of the Beautiful Tresses. 

"Still, I doubt if you have the disposition to use your advantage, " Ibegan. 

"You mean, the cruelty, " she corrected me. 

"I am from New York, " I smiled. "Let me say, the nerve. If you pressedthat knife, I might bleed to death, you know. "

"Would you hear a story of a woman of my house, and her anger, beforeyou doubt too far?"

"Tell me, " I consented; and smiled in the darkness at the transparentplan to distract my attention from that imprisoned braid. 

She was silent for so long that I fancied the plan abandoned, perhapsfor lack of a tale to tell. Then her voice leaped suddenly out of theblackness that closed us in, speaking always in muted tones, but with astrange, impassioned urgency and force that startled like a cry. Thewords hurried upon one another like breaking surf. 

"See! See! The fire leaps in the chimney; it breathes sparks like adreadful beast--it is hungry; its red tongues lick for that which theymay not yet have. Already its breath is hot upon the wax image on thehearth. But the image is round of limb and sound. Yes, though it is buttoy-large, it is perfect and firm! See how it stands in the red shine:the image of a man, cunningly made to show his stalwartness and strengthand bravery of velvet and lace! The image of a great man, surely; onehigh in place and power. One above fear and beyond the reach of hate!

"The woman sits in her low chair, behind the image. The fire-shine isbright in her eyes and in her hair. On either side her hair flows downto the floor; her eyes look on the image and are dreadfully glad. Ha, was not Beauty the lure, and shall it not be the vengeance?

"The nine lamps have been lighted! The feathers have been laid in acircle! The spell has been spoken; the spell of Hai, son of Set, firstman to slay man by the Dark Art!

"The man is at the door of the woman's house. Yes, he who came in prideto woo, and proved traitor to the love won--he is at her door inweakness and pain. 

"As the wax wastes, the man wastes! As the mannikin is gone, the mandies!

"On her doorstep, he begs for life. He is coward and broken. He suffersand is consumed. He calls to her the love-names they both know. And thewoman laughs, and the door is barred. 

"The door is barred, but what shall bar out the Enemy who creeps to thenine lamps?

"See, the fire shines through the wax! The image is grown thin and wan. Three days, three nights, it has shrunk before the flames. Three days, three nights, the woman has watched. As the fire is not weary, she isnot weary. As the fire is beautiful, she is beautiful. 

"The man is borne to her door again. He lifts up his hands and cries toher. But now he begs for death. Now he knows anguish stronger than fear. And the woman laughs, and the door is barred. 

"The fire shines on a lump of wax. The man is dead. From her chair thewoman has arisen and stands, triumphant. 

"_But what crouches behind her, unseen? The lamps are cast down! Thepentagram is crossed! The Horror takes its own. _"

The impassioned speech broke off with the effect of a snapped bar ofthin metal. In the silence, the steady whisper of rain came to my earsagain, continuing patiently. I became aware of a rich yet delicatefragrance in the air I breathed. It was not any perfume I couldidentify, either as a composition or as a flower scent. If I may hope tobe understood it sparkled upon the senses. It produced a thirst foritself, so that the nostrils expanded for it with an eagerness for thenew pleasure. I found myself breathing deeply, almost greedily, beforeanswering my prisoner's story. 

"'Sister Helen, '" I quoted, as lightly as I could. 

"And do you think Rossetti had no truth to base his poem upon?" herquiet voice flowed out of the darkness, seeming scarcely the same speechas the swift, irregular utterance of a moment before. "Do you think thatall the traditions and learning of the younger world meant--nothing?"

"Are you asking me to believe in witchcraft and sorcery?"

"I ask nothing. "

"Not even to believe that you will press the knife if I refuse to freeyou?"

"Not even that; now!"

Compunction smote me. Her voice sounded more faint, as if from fatigueor discouragement. It seemed to me that the blade against my wrist hadrelaxed its menace of pressure and just rested in position. I seemed toread my lady's weariness in the slackened vigilance. Perhaps she wasreally frightened, now that her brave attempt to lull me into incautionhad failed. 

"Listen, please, " I spoke earnestly. "I am going to set you free. Iapologize for keeping you captive so long! But you will admit theprovocation to my curiosity? You will forgive me?"

A sigh drifted across the darkness. 

"I ask no questions, " I urged. "But will you not trust me to make alight and give what help I can? You are welcome to use the house as youplease. Or, if you are lost or stormbound, my car is in the old barn andI will drive you anywhere that you say. Let us not spoil our adventureby suspicion. In good faith----"

I opened my hand, releasing the lovely rope by which I had detained myprisoner. Then, with a quickening pulse, I waited. Would she stay? Wouldshe spring up and escape? Would she thank me, or would she reply withsome eccentricity unpredictable as her whim to tell me that tale?

She did none of these things. The braid of hair, freed entirely, continued to lie supinely across my open palm. The coolness of the bladestill lightly touched my wrist. She might be debating her course ofaction, I reflected. Well, I was in no haste to conclude the episode!

When the silence had lasted many moments, however, I began to growrestive. Anxiety tinged my speculations. Suppose she had fainted? Or didshe doubt my intentions, and was her quietness that of one on guard? Istirred tentatively. 

Two things happened simultaneously with my movement. The braid glidedaway from me, while the knife slipped from its position and tinkled uponthe floor. I started up, perception of the truth seizing my slow wits, and reached for my flashlight. 

There was no one in the room except myself. Down my blanket was slippinga severed braid of hair, perhaps a foot in length, jaggedly cut acrossat the end farthest from my hand. Leaning over, I saw on the floorbeside the bed a paper-knife of my own; a sharp, serviceable tool thatformed part of my writing kit. Before going to bed, I had taken it frommy suitcase to trim a candle-wick, and had left it upon the bookstand. 

Now I understood why her voice had sounded more distant than seemedreasonable while I held her beside me. No doubt she had hacked off thedetaining braid almost as soon as I grasped it. The knife she hadpressed against my wrist to keep me where I lay while she made ready forflight; or amused herself with me. Flight? Say rather that she hadleisurely withdrawn! Perhaps she had not even heard my magnanimousspeech offering her the freedom that she already possessed. If she hadstayed to hear me, probably she had laughed. 

Perhaps she was still in the house. 

I rose and lighted a candle, under the impulsion of that idea, reservingmy flashlight for the search. But there was no one in any of the dusty, sparsely furnished rooms and halls through which I hunted. The ancientlocks on doors and windows were fastened as I had left them, although mylady certainly had entered and left at her pleasure. Puzzled and amused, I finally returned to my bedchamber. 

There was some difference in that room. I was conscious of the fact assoon as I entered and closed the door behind me. The candle still burnedwhere I had left it, flickering slightly in some current of air. Therewas no change that the eye could find, no sound except the rain, yet Ifelt an extreme reluctance to go on even a step from where I stood. WhatI wanted to do was to tear open the door behind me, to rush out into thehall and slam the door shut between this room and myself. 

Why? I looked around me, sending the beam of the flashlight playing overthe quiet place. Nothing, of course! I walked over to the bookcase, tookup the braid I had left there, and sat down in an old armchair to studymy trophy. On principle and by habit I had no intention of beingmastered by nerves. It was humiliating to discover that I could be madenervous by the mere fact of being in an unoccupied farmhouse aftermidnight. 

The braid was magnificent. It was as broad as my palm, yet compressed sotightly that it was thick and solid to the touch. If released oversomeone's shoulders, it would have been a sumptuous cloak, indeed! Inwhat madness of panic had the girl sacrificed this beauty? How she musthate me, now the panic was past! The color, too, was unique, in myexperience; a gold as vivid as auburn. Or was it tinged with auburn? AsI leaned forward to catch the candle-light, a drift of that fragranceworn by my visitor floated from her braid. 

At once I knew what had changed in the room. The air that had been sopure when the house was opened, now was heavy with an odor of damp andmould that had seeped into the atmosphere as moisture will seep throughcellar walls. One would have said that the door of some hideous vaulthad been opened into my bedchamber. This stench struggled, as it were, with the volatile perfume that clung about the braid; so that my senseswere thrust back and forth between disgust and delight in the strangestwavering of sensation. 

I made the strongest effort to put away the effect this wavering hadupon me. I forced myself to sit still and think of normal things; of themen whom I was to see next morning, of the plans I meant to discuss withthem. 

Useless! The stench was making me ill. A wave of giddiness swept overme, and passed. My heart was beating slowly and heavily. Something in myhead pulsed in unison. I felt a frightful depression, that suddenlyburst into an attack of fear gripping me like hysteria. I wanted toshriek aloud like a woman, to cover my eyes and run blindly. But at thesame time my muscles failed me. Will and strength were arrested likefrozen water. 

As I sat there, facing the door of the room, I became aware of Somethingat the window behind my back. Something that pressed against the openwindow and stared at me with a hideous covetousness beside which thegreed of a beast for its prey is a natural, innocent appetite. I feltthat Thing's hungry malignance like a soft, dreadful mouth suckingtoward me, yet held away from me by some force vaguely based on my ownresistance. And I understood how a man may die of horror. 

Yet, presently, I turned around. Weak and sick, with dragging effort Iturned in my chair and faced the black, uncurtained window where I feltIt to be. 

Nothing was there, to sight or hearing. I sat still, and combated thatwhich I knew _was_ there. In the profound stillness, I heard the windstir the naked branches of the trees, the flowing water through thefragments of the one-time dam, the sputtering of my candle which neededtrimming. Sweat ran down my face and body, drenching me with cold. Itcrouched against the empty window, staring at me. 

After a time, the presence seemed not so close. At last, I seemed toknow It was gone. In the gush of that enormous relief my remainingstrength was swept away like a swimmer in a torrent and I collapsedhalf-fainting in my chair. 

When I was able, I rose and walked through the house again. Again therooms showed nothing to my flashlight except dull furniture, wallspeeling here and there from long neglect, pictures of no merit anddreary subject. I had expected nothing, and I found nothing. 

It was on my way upstairs to my bedroom that a sentence from theinvisible lady's story came back to my mind. 

"What crouches behind her, unseen? The Horror takes Its own----"

The bedroom door opened quietly under my hand. The rain had ceased and afreshening breeze came from the west, filling the room with sweetcountry air. The candle had burned down. While I stood there, the flameflickered out. 

After a brief indecision, I made my way to the bed, rolled myself in theblankets, and laid down between the four pineapple-topped posts. Thistime I kept the flashlight at my hand. But almost at once I slept, andslept heavily far into a bright, windy March morning. 

CHAPTER III

 "Wide is the seat of the man gentle of speech. " --INSTRUCTION OF KE' GEMNI. 

On the second day after my return to New York, my Aunt Caroline Knoxcalled me up on the telephone. 

There are reasons why I always feel myself at a disadvantage with AuntCaroline. The first of these brings me to a trifling matter that Ishould have set down before, but which I have made a habit of ignoringso far as possible in both thought and speech. As was Lord Byron, I amslightly lame. I admit that is the only quality in common; still, I likethe romantic association. Now, my limp is very slight, and I never havefound it interfered much with things I cared to do. In fact, I amotherwise somewhat above the average in strength and vigor. But from myboyhood Aunt Caroline always made a point of alluding to the physicalfact as often as possible. She considered that course a healthfuldiscipline. 

"My nephew, " she was accustomed to introduce me. "Lame since he wasseven. Roger, do not scowl! Yes; run over trying to save a pet dog. Amongrel of no value whatever!"

Which would have left some doubt as to whether she referred to poorTatters or to me, had it not been for her exceeding pride in our familytree. 

The second reason for my disadvantage before her, was her utter contemptfor my profession as a composer of popular music. 

Today her voice came thinly to me across the long-distance wire. 

"Your Cousin Phillida has failed in her examinations again, " sheannounced to me, with a species of tragic repose. "In view of herfather's intellect and my--er--my family's, her mental status isinexplicable. Although, of course, there is your own case!"

"Why, she is the most educated girl I know, " I protested hastily. 

"I presume you mean best educated, Roger. Pray do not quite lose yourcommand of language. "

I meant exactly what I had said. Phillida has studied since she wasthree years old, exhaustively and exhaustedly. A vision of her plain, pale little face rose before me when I spoke. It is a burden to be theonly child of a professor, particularly for a meek girl. 

"She has studied insufficiently, " Aunt Caroline pursued. "She isnineteen, and her position at Vassar is deplorable. "

"Her health----" I murmured. 

"Would not have hampered her had she given proper attention toathletics! However, I did not call up to hear you defend Phillida in amatter of which you are necessarily ignorant. Her father and I aresomewhat better judges, I should suppose, than a young man who is not astudent in any true sense of the word and ignores knowledge as a purposein life. Not that I wish to wound or depreciate you, Roger. There is, Imay say, a steadiness of moral character beneath your frivolity of mindand pursuit. If my poor brother had trained you more wisely; if you hadbeen _my_ son----"

"Thank you, Aunt, " I acknowledged the benevolent intention, with aninward quailing at the clank of fetters suggested. "Was there somethingI can do for you?"

"Will you meet Phillida at the Grand Central and bring her home? Icannot have her cross New York alone and take a second train out here. Her father has a lecture this afternoon and I have a club meeting at thehouse. "

"With pleasure, Aunt! What time does her train get in?"

"Half after four. Thank you, Roger. And, she looks on you as an elderbrother. I believe an attitude of cool disapproval on your part mightimpress upon her how she has disappointed the family. "

"Leave it to me, Aunt. May I take her to tea, between trains, and getout to your place on the six o'clock express?"

"If you think best. You might advise her seriously over the tea. "

"A dash of lemon, as it were, " I reflected. "Certainly, Aunt, I could. "

"Very well. I am really obliged!"

"The pleasure is mine, Aunt. "

But that it was going to be Phillida's, I had already decided. She wouldneed the support of tea and French pastry before facing her home. As fortreating her with cool disapproval, I would sooner have spent a year atVassar myself. It was my intention to meet her with a box of chocolatesinstead of advice. Phil was not allowed candy, her complexion beingunder cultivation. On the occasions when we were out together it hadbeen my custom to provide a box of sweets, upon which she browsedluxuriously, bestowing the remnants upon some street child beforereaching her home. 

From the telephone I turned back to that frivolous pursuit of which myaunt had spoken with such tactfully veiled contempt. She was notsoftened by the respectable fortune I had made from several successfulmusical comedies and a number of efforts which my publishers advertiseas "high-class parlor pieces for the home. " In fact, she felt it to be agrievance that my lightness should be better paid than the Professor'slearning. In which she was no doubt right!

Ever since my return from my newly purchased farm in Connecticut, however, I had not been working for money or popular approval, but formy own pleasure. There was a Work upon which I spent only special hoursof delicious leisure and infinite labor. It held all that was forbiddento popular compositions; depth and sorrow and dissonances dearer thanharmony. I called it a Symphony Polynesian, and I had spent years instudy of barbaric music, instruments and kindred things that thislove-child of mine might be more richly clothed by a tone or a fancy. Aunt Caroline had interrupted, this morning, at a very point ofachievement toward which I had been working through the usualalternations of enjoyment and exasperation, elevation and dejection thatattend most workmen. Pausing only to set my alarm-clock, I hurried intorecording what I had found, in the tangible form of paper and ink. 

I always set the alarm-clock when I have an engagement, warned by direexperiences. 

Aunt Caroline had summoned me about eleven in the morning. When thestrident voice of the clock again aroused me, I had just time to dressand reach the Grand Central by half-past four. I recognized that I washungry, that the vicinity was snowed over with sheets of paper, that thepiano keys had acquired another inkstain, and my pipe had charredanother black spot on the desk top. Well, it had been a good day; andPhillida's tea would have to be my belated luncheon or early dinner. Even so, it was necessary to make haste. 

It was in that haste of making ready that I uncovered the braid ofglittering hair which I had brought from Connecticut. I use noexaggeration when I say it glittered. It did; each hair was lustrouswith a peculiar, shining vitality, and crinkled slightly along its fulllength. With a renewed self-reproach at sight of its humbled exile andcaptivity, I took up the trophy of my one adventure. While I am withoutmuch experience, such a quantity seemed unusual. Also, I had not knownsuch a mass of hair could be so soft and supple in the hand. My motherand little sister died before I can remember; and while I have many goodfriends, I have none intimate enough to educate me in such matters. Perhaps a consciousness of that trifling physical disadvantage of minehas made me prefer a good deal of solitude in my hours at home. 

The faint, tenacious yet volatile perfume drifted to my nostrils, as Iheld the braid. Who could the woman be who brought that costly fragranceinto a deserted farmhouse? For so exquisite and unique a fragrance couldonly be the work of a master perfumer. There was youth in that vigoroushair, coquetry in the individual perfume, panic in her useless sacrificeof the braid I held; yet strangest self-possession in the telling ofthat fanciful tale of sorcery to me. 

On that tale, told dramatically in the dark, I had next morning blamedthe weird waking nightmare that I had suffered after her visit. Thehorror of the night could not endure the strong sun and wind of theMarch morning that followed. Like _Scrooge_, I analyzed my ghost as abit of undigested beef or a blot of mustard. Certainly the thing hadbeen actual enough while it lasted, but my reason had thrust it away. That was over, I reflected, as I laid the braid back in the drawer. Butsurely the lady was not vanished like the nightmare? Surely I shouldfind her in some neighbor's daughter, when my house was finished and Iwent there for the summer? She could not hide from me, with that brightweb about her head whose twin web I held. 

It had grown so late that I had to take a taxicab to the Terminal, justhalting at a shop long enough to buy a box of the chocolates my cousinpreferred. But when I reached the great station and found my way throughthe swirl of travelers to the track where Phil's train should come in, Iwas told the express had been delayed. 

"Probably half an hour late, " the gateman informed me. "Maybe more! Ofcourse, though, she may pull in any time. "

Which meant no tea for Phillida; instead, a rush across town to thePennsylvania station to catch the train for her home. As I could notleave my post lest she arrive in my absence, it also meant nothing toeat for me until we reached Aunt Caroline's hospitality; which was cooland restrained rather than festive. 

I foresaw the heavy atmosphere that would brood over all like a coldfog, this evening of Phil's disgraceful return from the scholasticarena. Ascertaining from the gateman that the erring train was certainnot to pull in during the next ten minutes, I sought a telephone booth. 

"Aunt Caroline, Phil's train is going to be very late, possibly an hourlate, " I misinformed my kinswoman, when her voice answered me. "I havehad nothing to eat since breakfast, and she will be hungry long beforewe reach your house. May I not take her to dinner here in town?"

"Please do not call your cousin 'Phil', " she rebuked me, and paused todeliberate. "You had no luncheon, you say?"

"None. "

"Why not? Were you ill?"

"No; just busy. I forgot lunch. I am beginning to feel it, now. Still, if you wish us to come straight home, do not consider me!"

I knew of old how submission mollified Aunt Caroline. She relented, now. 

"Well----! You are very good, Roger, to save your uncle a trip into thecity to meet her. I must not impose upon you. But, a quiet hotel!"

"Certainly, Aunt. "

"Phillida does not deserve pampering enjoyment. I am consenting for yoursake. "

"Thank you, Aunt. I wonder, then, if you would mind if we stopped to seea show that I especially want to look over, for business reasons? Wecould come out on the theatre express; as we have done before, youremember?"

"Yes, but----"

"Thank you. I'll take good care of her. Good-bye. "

The receiver was still talking when I hung up. There is no other form ofconversation so incomparably convenient. 

The train arrived within the half-hour. With the inrush of travelers, Isighted Phillida's sober young figure moving along the cement platform. She walked with dejection. Her gray suit represented a compromisebetween fashion and her mother's opinion of decorum, thus attaining alength and fulness not enough for grace yet too much for jauntiness. Hersolemn gray hat was set too squarely upon the pale-brown hair, brushedback from her forehead. Her nice, young-girl's eyes looked out through apair of shell-rimmed spectacles. She was too thin and too pale tocontent me. 

When she saw me coming toward her, her face brightened and colored quitewarmly. She waved her bag with actual abandon and her lagging stepquickened to a run. 

"Cousin Roger!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Oh, how good of you tocome!"

She gripped my hands in a candid fervor of relief and pleasure. 

"I am so glad it is you, " she insisted. "I was sorry the train could notbe later; I wished, almost, it would never get in--and all the time itwas you who were waiting for me!"

"It was, and now you are about to share an orgy, " I told her. "I haveyour mother's permission to take you to dinner, Miss Knox. "

"Here? In town? Just us?"

"Yes. And afterward we will take in any show you fancy. How does thatstrike you?"

She gazed up at me, absorbing the idea and my seriousness. To my dismay, she grew pale again. 

"I--I really believe it will keep me from just dying. "

I pretended to think that a joke. But I recognized that my little cousinwas on the sloping way toward a nervous breakdown. 

"No baggage?" I observed. "Good! I hope you did not eat too muchluncheon. This will be an early dinner. "

She waited to take off the spectacles and put them in her little bag. 

"I do not need them except to study, but I didn't dare meet Motherwithout them, " she explained. "No; I could not eat lunch, or breakfasteither, Cousin Roger. Nor much dinner last night! Oh, if you knew how Idread--the grind! I should rather run away. "

"So we will; for this evening. "

"Yes. Where--where were you going to take me?"

We had crossed the great white hall to street level, and a taxicab wasrolling up to halt before us. Surprised by the anxiety in the eyes shelifted to mine, I named the staid, quietly fastidious hotel where Iusually took her when we were permitted an excursion together. 

"Unless you have a choice?" I finished. 

"I have. " She breathed resolution. "I want to go to a restaurant with acabaret, instead of going to the theatre. May I? Please, may I? Will youtake me where I say, this one time?"

Her earnestness amazed me. I knew what her mother would say. I alsoknew, or thought I knew that Phillida needed the mental relaxation whichcomes from having one's own way. In her mood, no one else's way, however, wise or agreeable, will do it all. 

"All right, " I yielded. "If you will promise me, faith of a gentlewoman, to tell Aunt Caroline that I took you there and you did not know whereyou were going. My shoulders are broader than yours and have borne thebuffeting of thirty-two years instead of nineteen. Had you chosen theplace, or shall I?"

To my second surprise, she answered with the name of an uptown placewhere I never had been, and where I would have decidedly preferred notto take her. 

"They have a skating ballet, " she urged, as I hesitated. "I know it iswonderful! Please, please----?"

I gave the direction to the chauffeur and followed my cousin into thecab. It seemed a proper moment to present the chocolates from myovercoat pocket. When she proved too languid to unwrap the box, I wasseriously uneasy. 

"You cannot possibly know how dreadful it is to be the only child of twointellectual people who expect one to be a credit, " she excused her lackof appetite, nervously twitching the gilt cord about the package. "Andto be stupid and a disappointment! Yes, as long as I can remember, Ihave been a disappointment. If only there had been another to divide allthose expectations. If only you had been my brother!"

"Heaven forbid!" I exclaimed hastily. "That is----"

"Don't bother about explaining, " she smiled wanly, "I understand. Butyou are distinguished, and you look it. I never will be, and I am ugly. Mother expects me to be an astronomer like Father and work with him, orto go in for club life and serious writing as she does. I never can doeither. "

"Neither could I, Phil. "

"You are clever, successful. Everybody knows your name. When we are out, and people or an orchestra play your music, Mother always says: 'Atrifle of my nephew's, Roger Locke. Very original, is it not? Of course, I do not understand music, but I hear that his last light opera----' Andthen she leans back and just _eats up_ all the nice things said aboutyour work. She would never let you know it, but she does. And that isthe sort of thing she wants from me. I--I want to make cookies, and Ilove fancywork. "

The taxicab drew up with a jerk before the gaudy entrance to SilverAisles. 

I imagine Phillida had the vaguest ideas of what such places were like. When we were settled at a table in a general blaze of pink lights, beside a fountain that ran colored water, I regarded her humorously. Butshe seemed quite contented with her surroundings, looking about her withan air I can best describe as grave excitement. At this hour, the roomwas not half filled, and the jazz orchestra had withdrawn to prepare fora hard night's work. 

After I had ordered our dinner, I glanced up to see her fingers busiedloosening the severe lines of her brushed back hair. 

"Everyone here looks so nice, " she said wistfully. "I wish my hair didshine and cuddle around my face like those women's does. Do--do I lookqueer, Cousin? You are looking at me so----?"

"I was thinking what pretty eyes you have. "

Her pale face flushed. 

"Really?"

"Most truthfully. As for the hair, isn't that a matter of bottled polishand hairdressers? But you remind me of a question for you. Isn't a braidof hair this wide, " I laid off the dimensions on the table, "this long, and thick, a good deal for a woman to own?"

"Show me again. "

I obeyed, while she leaned forward to observe. 

"Not one girl in a hundred has so much, " she pronounced judgment. "Whois she? Probably it isn't all her own, anyhow!"

"It is not now, but it was, " I said remorsefully. 

"How could you tell? Did you measure it?"--with sarcasm. "Do youremember the maxim we used to write in copybooks? 'Measure a thousandtimes, and cut once?' One has to be cautious!"

"I cut it first, and then measured. "

"What? Tell me. "

At last she was interested and amused. There was no reason why I shouldnot tell her of my midnight adventure. We never repeated one another'slittle confidences. 

She listened, with many comments and exclamations, to the story of theunseen lady, the legend of the fair witch, the dagger that was apaper-knife by day and the severed tresses. She did not hear of thesingular nightmare or hallucination that had been my second visitor. Myreason had accounted for the experience and dismissed it. Some otherpart of myself avoided the memory with that deep, unreasoning sense ofhorror sometimes left by a morbid dream. 

The dinner crowd had flowed in while we ate and talked. A burst ofapplause aroused me to this fact and the commencement of the first showof the evening. The orchestra had taken their places. 

"They will hardly begin with their best act, " I remarked, surprised byPhillida's convulsive start and rapt intentness upon the stretch of icethat formed the exhibition floor. "Your ballet on skates probably willcome later. "

"I did not come to see the ballet, " she answered, her voice low. 

"No? What, then?"

"A--man I know?"

Once when I was a little fellow, I raced headlong into the low-swingingbranch of a tree, the bough striking me across the forehead so that Iwas bowled over backward amid a shower of apples. I felt a twinsensation, now. 

"Here, Phillida?"

"Yes. "

"Someone from your home town or your college town?" I essayed a casualtone. 

"Neither. He belongs here, and they call him Flying Vere. He--Look!Look, Cousin!"

I turned, and saw that the first performer was upon the ice floor. 

He came down the center like a silver-shod Mercury. In the silence, forthe orchestra did not accompany his entrance, the faint musical ringingof his skates ran softly with him. My first unwilling recognition of hisgood looks and athletic grace was followed by an equally reluctantadmission of his skill. Reluctant, because my anger and bewildermentwere hot against the man. My little cousin, my pathetic, unworldlyPhillida--and this cabaret entertainer! At the mere joining of theirnames my senses revolted. What could they have in common? How had sheseen him? Having seen him, it was easy to understand how he hadfascinated her inexperience. Only, what was his object?

He had seen us, where we sat. I saw his dark eyes fix upon her and flashsome message. Her plain little face irradiated, her fingersunconsciously twisting and wringing her napkin, she leaned forward towatch and answer glance for glance. 

I would rather not put into words my thoughts. Yet, I watched hisperformance. In spite of myself, he held me with his swift, certainskill, his vitality and youth. 

He was gone, with the swooping suddenness of his appearance. The jazzmusic clattered out. Phillida turned back to me and began to speak witha hushed rapture that baffled and infuriated me. 

"You understand, Cousin Roger? Now that you have seen him, you dounderstand? No! Let me talk, please. Let me tell you, if I can. It beganlast summer, at the school where I was cramming for college work. Oh, how tired I was of study! How tired of it I am, and always shall be! Ithink that side of me never will get rested. Then, in the woods, I methim. He was stopping at a hotel not far away. I--we----"

I waited for her to go on. Instead, she abruptly spread wide her handsin a gesture of helplessness. 

"After all, I cannot tell you. Not even you, Cousin! He--he liked me. Hetreated me just as a really, truly girl who would have partners atdances and wear fluffy frocks and curl her hair. He thought I waspretty!"

The naïve wonder and triumph of her cry, the challenge in her browneyes, to my belief, were moving things. I registered some ugly mentalcomments on the rearing of Phil and the kind of humility that is _not_good for the soul. 

"Why not?" I demanded. "Of course!"

She shook her head. 

"No. Thank you, but--no! Not pretty, except to him. Only to him, becausehe loves me. "

I do not know what impatience I exclaimed. She checked me, leaningacross the table to grasp my hand in both hers. 

"Hush! Oh, hush, dear Cousin Roger! For it is quite too late. We weremarried six months ago; last autumn. "

When I could, I asked:

"Married legally, beyond mistake? Were you not under eighteen yearsold?"

"I was eighteen years and a half. There is no mistake at all. We walkedover to the city hall in the nearest town, and took out our license, andwere married. "

"Very well. I will take you home to your father and mother, now; thensee this man, myself. If there is indeed no flaw in the marriage and itcannot be annulled, a divorce must be arranged. Any money I have orexpect to have would be a small price to set you free from the miserablebusiness. But the first thing is to get you home. We will start now. "

She detained my hand when I would have signalled our waiter. Her eyes, shining and solemn as a small child's, met mine. 

"No, Cousin, please! I am not going home any more. At least, not alone. I asked you to bring me here where he is, because I am going to staywith my husband. "

"Never, " I stated firmly. 

"Yes. "

"Not if I have to send for your father and take you home by force. "

"You cannot. I am of age. "

"Phillida, I am responsible for you to your parents tonight. Let me takeyou home, explain things to them, and then decide your course. "

"But that is what I most do not want to do!" she naïvely exclaimed. 

"You will not?"

"I'm sorry. No. "

"Then I must see the man. "

"Not--hurt----?"

I recalled the man we had just seen on the skating floor, with a qualmof quite unreasonable bitterness. That anxiety of Phillida's had aflavor of irony for me. 

"Hardly, " I returned. "There are fortunately other means of persuasionthan physical force. "

"Oh! But you cannot persuade him to give me up. "

I was silent. At which, being a woman, she grew troubled. 

"How could you?" she urged. 

"You have had no opportunity of judging what influence money has on somepeople, Phil. "

She laughed out in relief. 

"Is that all? Try, Cousin. "

"You trust him so much?"

"In everything, forever!"

"Then if I succeed in buying him off, promise me that you will come homewith me. "

"If he takes money to leave me?"

"Yes. "

"I should die. But I will promise if you want me to, because I know itnever will happen. Just as I might promise to do anything, when I knewthat I never would have to carry it out. "

"Very well, " I accepted the best I could get. "I will go find him. "

"There is no need. He is coming here to our table as soon as he isfree. "

"I will not have you seen with him in this place. "

"But I am going to stay here with him, " she said. 

Her eyes, the meek eyes of Phillida, defied me. My faint authority was asham. What could be done, I recognized, must be done through the man. 

We sat in silence, after that. Presently, her gaze fixed aslant on me asif to dare my interference, she drew up a thin gold chain that hungabout her neck and ended beneath her blouse. From it she unfastened awedding ring and gravely put the thing on her third finger, theschool-girl romanticism of the gesture blended with an air oflittle-girl naughtiness. She looked more fit for a nursery than for thisbusiness. 

I could tell from the change in her expression when the man wasapproaching. I rose, meaning to meet him and turn him aside from ourtable. But Phillida halted me with one deftly planted question. 

"You would not leave me alone in this place, Cousin?"

Certainly I would not leave her alone at a table here; not even alone inappearance while I had my interview with the man close at hand. Yet itseemed impossible to speak before her. She calmly answered myperplexity. 

"You must talk to him here, of course. I--want to listen to you both. Indeed, I shall not interfere at all, or be angry or hurt! I know howgood you mean to be, dear; only, you do not understand. "

I sat down again, perforce. When the man's shadow presently fell acrossour table, it did not soothe me to see Phil thrust her hand in his, hersmall face enraptured, her fingers locking about his with a caress plainas a kiss. She said proudly, if tremulously:

"Cousin Roger, this is my husband. Mr. Locke, Ethan dear. "

He said nothing. His hesitating movement to offer his hand I chose toignore. I admit that my spirit rose against him to the point of loathingas he stood there, tall, correct in attire--the focus of admiringglances from other diners--in every way the antithesis of my poorPhillida. 

"Sit down, " I bade curtly, when he did not speak. "Miss Knox insiststhat we have our interview here. I should have preferred otherwise, buther presence must not prevent what has to be said. "

"It won't prevent anything I want to say, Mr. Locke, " he answered. 

He spoke with a drawl. Not the drawl of affectation, nor the drawl ofSouth or West so cherished by the romantic, but the slow, deliberatespeech of New England's upper coasts. It had the oddest effect, thathonest, homely accent on the lips of a performer in this place. Phildrew him down to the third chair at the table. After which, she foldedher hands on the edge of the cloth as if to signify to me how she kepther promise of neutrality, and looked fixedly at her glass of waterinstead of at either of us. Plainly, all action was supposed to proceedfrom me. 

"My cousin has just told me of her marriage, " I opened, as dryly conciseas I could manage explanation. "It is of course impossible that sheshould adopt your way of living, as she seems to have in mind. You maynot understand, yet, that it also is impossible for you to adopt hers. No doubt you have supposed her to be the daughter of wealthy people, orat least people of whom money could be obtained. You were wrong. Professor Knox has nothing but his modest salary. Her parents are of thescholarly, not of the moneyed class. She has no kin who could or wouldsupport her husband or pay largely to be rid of him. Of all her people, I happen to be the best off, financially. It happens also that I am notsentimental, nor alarmed at the idea of newspaper exploitation foreither of us. It is necessary that all this be plainly set forth beforewe go further. 

"Now, for your side: you have involved Miss Knox to the extent ofmarriage. To free her from this trap into which her inexperience haswalked is worth a reasonable price. I will pay it. I shall take her hometo her father and mother tonight, and consult my lawyer tomorrow. Hewill conduct negotiations with you. The day Miss Knox is divorced fromyou without useless scandal or trouble-making, I will pay to you the sumagreed upon with my lawyer. If you prefer to make yourselfobjectionable, you will get nothing, now or later. "

He took it all without a flicker of the eyelids, not interrupting ordisplaying any affectation of being insulted. I acknowledge, now, thatit was an outrageous speech to make to a man of whom I knew nothing. Butit was so intended; summing up what I considered an outrageous situationbrought about by his playing upon a young girl's ignorance of suchfellows as himself. Phillida's usually pale cheeks were burning. Severaltimes she would have broken in upon me with protests, if Vere had notsilenced her by the merest glances of warning. A proof of his influenceover her which had not inclined me toward gentleness with him!

When I finished there was a pause before he turned his dark eyes tomine, and held them there. 

"Honest enough!" he drawled, with that incongruous coast-of-Maine tangto his leisureliness. "I'll match you there, Mr. Locke. I don't carewhether you make fifty thousand a year with your music writing, orwhether you grind a street-piano with a tin-cup on top. It's nothing tome. I guess we can do without your lawyer, too. Because, you see, Imarried Mrs. Vere because I wanted her; and I figure on supporting her. If her folks are too cultivated to stand me, I'm sorry. But they won'thave to see me. So that's settled!"

He was honest. His glance drove that fact home to me with a fist-likeimpact. There was nothing I was so poorly prepared to meet. 

Phillida's hands went out to him in an impulsive movement. He coveredthem both with one of his for a moment before gently putting them in herlap with a gesture of reminder toward the revellers all about us. Thedelicacy of that thought for her was another disclosure of character, unconsciously made. Worthy or unworthy, he did love Phil. 

I am not too dully obstinate to recognize a mistake of my own. Whatevermy bitterness against the man, I had to accord him some respect. I satfor a while striving to align my forces to attack this new front. 

"I don't blame you for thinking what you said, Mr. Locke, " his voicepresently spoke across my perplexity. "I can see the way things came toyou; finding me here, and all! I'm glad to have had this chance to talkit out with one of my wife's relations. I'd like them to know she'll betaken care of. Outside of that, I guess there is nothing we have to sayto each other. "

"I suppose I owe you both an apology, " I said stiffly. 

"Oh, that's all right--for both of us! I can see how much store you setby her. "

"But what are you going to do with her, man?" I burst forth. "Do youexpect to keep her here; sitting at a table in this place and watchingyou do your turn, making your fellow performers her friends, seeing andlearning----?" I checked my outpouring of disgust. "Or do you propose toshut her up in some third-class boarding house day and night while youhang around here? Good heavens, Vere, do you realize what either lifewould be for an nineteen-year-old girl brought up as she has been?"

He colored. 

"As for bringing up, " he retorted, "I guess she couldn't be a lot moremiserable than her folks worried her into being. But--you're right aboutthe rest. That's why I was going to leave her with her folks yet awhile, until I had a place for her. I mean, while I saved up enough toget the place. "

"But I wrote to him when I failed in my exams, Cousin Roger, " Phillidabroke in. "I told him that I would not go home. I could not bear it. Iwas coming to him, and he would just have to keep me with him or Ishould _die_. Indeed, I do not care about places. I think it will belovely fun to sit here and watch him, or go behind the scenes with himand make friends with the other people. I--I am surprised that you areso narrow, Cousin Roger, when all your own best friends are theatricalpeople and artists and you think so highly of them. "

I answered nothing to that. The distance between the stage and thisclass of cabaret show was not to be traversed in a few seven-leaguewords. I looked at Vere, who returned my look squarely and soberly. 

"You needn't worry about her being here, Mr. Locke, " he said. "I knowbetter than that! But she has to come to me; it's her right, don't youthink? I'll promise you to take her to a better place as soon as I canmanage. "

"What kind of a place?"

"I'm saving to get a place in the country, " he answered diffidently. "I'm a countryman, and Phillida thinks she'd like it. "

"You?" I exclaimed, unable to smother my derision and unbelief. Myglance summed up his fastidious apparel and grooming, the gloss on hiscurling dark hair and the dubious diamond on his little finger. 

He reddened through his clear, dark skin, but his eyes were not those ofa man taken in a lie. 

"Did you take notice of what I do here?" He asked me, with the firsttouch of humility I had seen in him. "I couldn't dance or sing or doparlor tricks. I wasn't bred to parlors or indoors. But I learned toskate pretty fancy from a boy up. My folks' farm was on one side of alake and the schoolhouse on the other. About November that lake used tofreeze solid. My brother and I used to skate five miles to school, andback again, before we were six years old. We lived on skates about halfthe year, I guess. Well--you don't care about the rest; how the farm wasjust about big enough to support my elder brother and his family, and Icame to New York. Nor how I found New York pretty well filled up withfolks who knew considerably more than I did. It was the manager of thisplace who advertised for expert skaters, who dressed me up like this, and paid me the first living wages I'd had in the city. All the same, Iwas bred a farmer, and I mean to get back to it. Always have! You're aman, Mr. Locke, and I'd hate you to think I was a shimmy dancer on iceand nothing else, or I wouldn't mention it. My father would have takenthe buggy-whip to me, I guess, if he'd lived to see me in this rig. Soonas I've enough put by, I'll shed this perfumed suit and the cheapjewelry and take my wife where she can have a chance to forget I everwore them. "

"But I _like_ them, " put in Phillida ardently. "Please do not fuss so, Ethan; because I really do. "

"Do you?" I turned upon her. "Are you sure, then, that it is not allthis cabaret glamour you really are in love with? Would you care for himas an ordinary, hard-working fellow in a pair of overalls and a flannelshirt? No applause, no lights, no stage?"

She laughed up at me. 

"You have forgotten that I met Ethan while he was on a vacation from hiswork here, and roughing it. When I married him, I had hardly seen him inanything except his Navy flannel shirt, scrubby trousers, and funnyblunt-toed shoes. "

"You served in the war?" I asked him. 

He nodded. 

"Yes. On a submarine chaser. Got pneumonia from exposure and wasinvalided home just before the Armistice. "

"And you came back here?"

"I came here, " he corrected me. "I enlisted from Maine. I was dischargedin New York. That was when I couldn't find anything I could do, untilthis skating trick came along. "

I sat thinking for a time; as long thoughts as I could command. Theobvious course was to send for Phillida's father. Yet what could thatvague and learned gentleman do that I could not? I visioned theProfessor standing in this riotous, gaudy restaurant, swinging hiseye-glasses by their silk ribbon and peering at Vere in helplessdistaste and consternation. It was practically certain that Phil wouldrefuse to go home with him. 

What if she did go home? I could picture the scene there, when the truthcame out. The mortification of her people, the gossip in the littletown, her outcast position among the girls and boys with whom she hadgrown up--what a martyrdom for a sensitive spirit! Of course, the onlypossible thing considered by Aunt Caroline would be a prompt divorce. 

If Phillida refused to consent to a divorce, how could she live at homeas the wife of a man her parents had pronounced unfit to receive? If sheyielded and gave up Vere, would she be much better off? An embarrassmentto her family, the heroine of a stolen marriage and Reno freedom, whatchance of happiness would she have in her conventional circle?Especially as she neither was a beauty nor the dashing type of girl whomight make capital of such a reputation. Probably she would bury herselfin nunlike seclusion, stay in her room when callers came, and wear aveil when she went out to walk. 

Meanwhile, she would break her heart for Vere. 

Could matters be any worse if she tried life with him, even if theexperiment eventually proved a failure and ended in a divorce instead ofbeginning there? Might not her parents be spared much they most dreaded, if their friends could be told simply that Phillida had made a lovematch and was with her husband?

Finally, Phillida was a human creature with the right to manage her ownlife. Had any of us the right to lay hands upon her existence and mouldit to our fancy?

I looked up from my revery to find the eyes of both of them fixed on meas if I held their doom balanced upon my palm. Perhaps, in a sense, Idid. 

"Phil, will you come home to your father and mother, and consider allthis a bit more before you decide?" I asked her. 

I thought I knew the answer to this, and I did. 

"No, Cousin Roger, " she refused firmly. "Please forgive me. I know howkind you mean to be, but--no! I shall stay with Ethan. If ever you loveanyone, you will understand. "

I accepted the decision. There was no reason why I should think of thewoman who had spoken to me across the darkness in a voice of melody andpower, or why I should seem to feel again the exquisite, live softnessof her braid within my hand. But it was so. 

"Very well, " I said. "Vere, it is to you, then, as Phillida's husband, that I must address any plans. I do not pretend to like the course shehas taken. I do not know what action her parents may take, although Ibelieve they will listen to my advice. Putting all that aside, sherefuses to come with me and you agree that she cannot stay here. 

"I have just bought a farm in Connecticut, intending to use it as asummer home. There are some alterations and repairs being made, butlittle is to be changed inside the house and it is in perfectly livableshape. Here is my offer. Take Phillida there, and I will make youmanager of the place. I will pay all reasonable expenses of putting theland into proper condition and getting such stock and equipment as youjudge best; all expenses and up-keep of the house and whatever salaryusually is drawn by such managers of small estates. I shall be there, onand off, but you and Phillida must take charge of everything. I amneither a farmer nor a housekeeper, and do not wish to be either. Ibought the place only because New York is too hot to work in duringthree months of the year, and I hate summer resorts. Keep my room ready, and you will find I disturb you little. Of course, hire what servantsare necessary. 

"Now, if you make the place self-supporting inside of five years, I willdeed the whole thing to you two. To put it better, if you succeed inmaking the farm pay a living for yourselves, I will make it over to youand withdraw. If you fail--well, I suppose you will be no worse off thanyou are now!"

They were stricken speechless. Perhaps my attitude had not pointed tosuch a conclusion of our interview. Phillida told me long afterward thatshe expected me to bid them good-evening and abandon them forever, as mymildest course; with alternative possibilities such as summoning apoliceman and having Vere haled to prison. Seeing their condition, Irose. 

"I will stroll about and leave you a chance to talk it over, " Ideclared; although there are few ordeals I dislike more than displayingmy limp about such public rooms. 

Vere stopped me, rising as I rose. 

"No need of that, for us, " he answered, facing me across the littletable. "About giving us your farm, Mr. Locke, that's for the future!Just now, the manager's job is plenty big enough to thank you for. Iwish I could say it better. If you'll stay here with Phillida for tenminutes, until I can get back, I'll be obliged. "

"Where are you going?"

"To resign here, and get my outfit into a suitcase. "

He had taken up my challenge like a man, at least. There were none ofthe hesitations and excuses to stay in town that I had half expected. Itpleased me that he decided for Phil as well as himself. Some of my ideasabout marriage are antiquated, I admit. I nodded to him, and sat downagain. 

It is unnecessary to record the childish things Phillida tried to say tome, while he was gone. 

"I am so happy, " was her apology for threatened tears. "I never knewanyone--except Ethan--could be so kind. And--and, will you tell Fatherand Mother?"

"Yes. " I winced, though, at that prospect. "Give me that little bag youcarry on your wrist. "

She obeyed, wide-eyed. 

"You do tote a powder-puff. I did not know whether Aunt Carolinepermitted it. Rub it on your nose, " I advised, passing the bit of fluffto her. 

While she complied, almost like a normally frivolous girl, I used themoment to transfer a few banknotes to the bag, so some need might notfind her penniless. 

Vere came back in not much more than the promised ten minutes. He hadchanged to gray street clothes and carried a suitcase. I noted that thediamond had disappeared from his finger and his curly head looked as ifit had been held under a water-faucet and vigorously toweled to lessenthe brilliantine gloss. 

"If you'll tell us where your farm is, Mr. Locke, we'll start, " hevolunteered. 

Phillida looked up at him with eyes of adoring trust. 

"I had the porter at the Terminal check my suitcase to be called for. Weshall have to get it, dear. "

In spite of myself, I smiled at their amazing promptitude. There wasboth reassurance and pathos in its unconscious youth. All this eagernesspressing forward--where? They did not know, nor I. Certainly we did notdream how strange a goal awaited one of us three, or on what weird, desolate path that traveler's foot was already set. 

"You had better go to a good hotel for tonight, " I modified their plan. "Tomorrow is time enough to go out to the farm, by daylight. Phil hashad enough excitement for one day. I will write full directions for thetrip, Vere, on the back of this timetable of the railroad you musttake. "

They were enchanted with this suggestion. Indeed, they were in a stateof mind to have assented if I advised them to sit out on a park benchuntil morning. 

Yet, when I had put them and their scanty luggage into a taxicab, Isuffered a bad pang of misgiving. What responsibility was I assuming inletting my little-girl cousin go like this? What did I know of this man, or where he would take her? I think Phillida divined something of mytrouble, for she leaned out the door to me and held up her face like achild's to be kissed. 

"I am so _happy_, " she whispered. 

I turned to Vere; who had a long envelope in readiness to put in myhand. 

"I guess you might like to have these for a while, Mr. Locke, " he said, with one of his slow, straightforward glances. 

With which farewells I had to be content, and watch their taxi swing outinto the bright-dark flow of traffic where it was lost from my sight. After which, I entered another taxicab by my unromantic self and wasdriven to that railroad station where I would find a train bound to thecollege town that was the home of Aunt Caroline and her husband. Onealways thought of Phil's parents in that order, although the Professorwas a moderately distinguished scientist and his spouse merely masterfulin her own limited circle. 

The envelope Vere had given me contained their marriage certificate, hisrelease from the Navy, and his membership card in the American Legion. 

CHAPTER IV

 "Fair speech is more rare than the emerald found by slave maidens on the pebbles. "--PTAH-HOTEP. 

At ten o'clock, next morning, I was summoned from my sleep by the bellof the telephone beside my bed. It was not a pleasant sleep, although Ihad not returned to my apartment until dawn. Nightmare doubts gallopedruthless hoofs over any repose. 

Phillida's voice came over the wire to me like the morning song of abird. 

"Good-morning, Cousin Roger. We are going to take the train in a fewmoments. But I could not leave New York without telling you how happy Iam. Are you--did I wake you up? I was afraid that I might, but Ethansaid you would like me to call, even so. "

"My dear, it was the kindest thought you ever had, " I told herfervently. 

"Was it?" she hesitated. "Then--were they pretty dreadful to you athome?"

"Quite!"

"Do you suppose they will _do_ anything dreadful about us?"

"No. Nothing. "

It did not seem necessary to tell her that Aunt Caroline did not knowwhere the runaways had gone, and was thereby debarred from hasty action. Phillida's father had privately agreed with me in this. 

"I am so very happy, Cousin Roger!"

"I am glad, Phil. "

"And you will come to the farm soon?"

"Soon, " I promised. 

So the nightmares of immediate anxiety for her galloped themselves away, routed for that time. Like my gold-fish when their bowl has been undulyshaken, I sank down again into the quieted waters of my little world andabsorption in my own affairs. There have been hours when I wondered if Iwas of more importance than they, as a matter of cosmic fact. 

A month passed before I kept my promise to go to the farm inConnecticut. 

As a first reason, I wanted to leave my young couple alone for a periodof adjustment. Also, I was curious to see how they would handle thebusiness left to them. I held telephone conversations with Phillida, andwith various contractors now and then. I sent out the furnishings for myown room. Everything else I purposely left to the experimenters. 

There was a second reason, more obscure. I wanted to keep for a whilethe little mystery of the lady who had come to the farmhouse room in thedark of the night. She was pure romance, a rare incident in a prosaicage. My table had been bare of such delicately spiced morsels, and Irelished the savor of this one upon my palate. I was not quite ready tofind her in the matter-of-fact daughter of some neighbor, who had soughtshelter from the storm in that supposedly empty house and probablymistaken me for a tramp. 

Perhaps I was equally reluctant to go back and prove that the adventurewas ended, that she had been a bird of passage who had gone on with nothought of return. 

With all these delays, and the fact that my work really kept me busy intown, April was verging toward May when I finally saw the last of myluggage put into the car and started on my fifty-mile drive to the houseby the lake. I did not take this first visit very seriously, or intendit to be over long. To be a constraint upon the household I hadestablished, or assume a right there, was far from the course I planned. It was not certain Vere and I would be comfortable housemates. But tostay away altogether would have hurt Phillida as much as to stay toolong, I considered. Probably a week would be about enough for this time. 

So lightly, so ignorantly, I stepped from the first great division of mylife into the second; not hearing the closing of the gate through whichthere was no turning back. 

CHAPTER V

 "The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'. " --THE COURTIN'. 

I arrived at noon, when a bright sun set the country air afloat withmotes like dust of gold. The place seemed drenched in golden light. Eventhe young grass had gold in its green, and the lake glittered hot withyellow sparkles. 

The house was transformed. The cream-colored stucco that hid its homelywalls, deep, arched porches that took the place of the old shallowaffairs, scarlet Spanish tiles where bleached shingles had been--allunited in giving it the gayest, most modern air imaginable. A graveldrive curved in beneath the new porte-cochère, inviting the wheels of mycar to explore. Grass had been put in order, flower-beds laid out. Thenew dam was up, and the miniature lake no longer suggested a swamp. Ifthe place had appealed to me in its dreary neglect, now it held out itsarms to me and laughed an invitation. 

As I stepped from my car, I heard running feet and a girl sped aroundthe veranda to meet me. She cast herself into my arms before I fairlyrealized this was Phillida. A Phillida as new to my eyes as the house!After the first greetings I held her off to analyze the change. 

She was tanned and actually rosy. The corners of her once sad littlemouth turned up instead of down and developed--I looked twice--yes, developed a dimple. The dull hair I always had seen brushed plainlyback, now was parted on one side and fluffed itself across her foreheadand about her cheeks with an astonishing effectiveness. She was attiredin a China-blue linen frock with a scarlet sash knotted in front quitedaringly, for Phillida. 

"Why, Phil, how pretty we are!" I admired. 

She looked up at me like a praised little girl, and smoothed the sash. Inoticed she wore above her wedding ring that "diamond" which once hadadorned Vere's finger so distastefully to me. It shone bravely in thesunlight with quite a display of fire. Tracing my gaze, she held out herhand for me to see. 

"Yes, it was his, Cousin Roger. Of course, we have not very much moneyyet, and I do not care about all the engagement rings that ever werethought of. But, I was afraid people up here might notice that I hadnone and think slightingly of Ethan. So I asked him, and we went to ajeweler, who made it smaller to fit me. It is not a false stone, youknow. It is a white topaz, and I love it better than the biggestdiamond. "

"Then you are still happy?"

"Forever and ever, world without end, " she answered solemnly. 

We went in. 

Sun and sweet wind had worked white magic in the long-closed house. Quaint furniture, no longer dust-grimed but lustrous with cleanlinessand polish, had quite a different air. Fresh upholstery in cheerfultints, fresh paper on the walls, good rugs, order and daintinesseverywhere changed the interior out of my recognition. Already theatmosphere of home and cheer was established. 

"Come see your rooms, " Phillida invited, enraptured by my admiration. "They are so pretty!"

She ran up the stairs, around the passage, and ushered me into the roomof graceful adventure and grotesque nightmare. I stopped on thethreshold. 

I had ordered the partition removed between the two chambers on thisside, giving me one large room. This, with the little bathroom attached, occupied the entire large frontage of the house. This long, spaciousroom; floors covered by my Chinese rugs, walls echoing the rugs'smoke-blue, my piano in a bright corner, my special easychairs andwriting-table in their due places, welcomed me with such familiarcomfort that I could not identify the neglected chamber where I hadslept one night in the old bed with the four pineapple-topped posts. Thewindows were opened, and white curtains with their over-draperies ofblue silk were swinging in and out on a fresh breeze where the Horror ofmy dream had seemed to press itself against the black panes. Decidedly, I must have had a bad attack of indigestion that night!

"See how nice?" Phillida was urging appreciation at my side. "We swungthose lovely old hangings from the arch, so they can be drawn across thebedroom end of your room, if you like. Although I do not know why you_should_ like, everything is so pretty! Your long Venetian mirror camesafely, and all your darling lamps. And--and I hope you like it so well, Cousin Roger, that you will stay here always!"

When she left me alone, I walked to the different windows, contemplatingthe stretches of lawn dotted with budding apple trees and the lake thatlay beyond shining in the sun. Was Phillida's charming wish to become afact, I wondered? Could this rest and calm hold me content here, where Ihad meant merely to pause and pass on? I looked at the yellow countryroad meandering past the lake into unseen distance. Should I ever see myLady of the Beautiful Tresses come that way, or travel that road towhere she lived? If I did meet her, would she forgive me the loss of herbraid? There would be a test for the sweetness of her disposition!

When a chiming dinner-gong summoned me downstairs, I found Vere awaitingme beside Phillida. We shook hands, and he made some brief, pleasantspeech about their having expected me sooner. If pale, timid Phil hadbecome a surprising butterfly, Vere had taken the reverse progresstoward the sober grub. I like him better in outing clothes, although heshowed even more the unusual good looks which so unreasonably prejudicedme against him. If he felt any strain in our meeting, his slow, tranquiltrick of speech and manner covered it. I hope I did as well! It was thenI discovered that his wife's pet name for him fitted like a glove. Shecalled him "Drawls. "

The luncheon was good; cooked and served by a middle-aged Swedish womannamed Cristina. Afterward, I was conducted into the kitchen by the ladyof the house, to view the new fittings and improvements. Most odd andpretty it was to see Phillida in that rôle of housewife, and to watchher pride in Vere and deference to him. Let me record that I never sawthe daughter of Aunt Caroline fail in this settled course toward herhusband. Whether it was born of revulsion from her mother's hectoringdomestic methods, or of consciousness that outsiders might rate Verebelow his wife in station and education, so her respect for him mustforbid their slight, I do not know. But I never saw her oppose him orspeak rudely to him before other people. I suppose they may have had theusual conjugal differings, neither of them being angelic. If so, nooutsider ever glimpsed the fact. 

We spoke of nothing serious on that first day. They both showed me thevarious improvements finished or progressing, indoors or out. 

We dined as agreeably as we had lunched. Quite early, afterward, Iexcused myself, and left together the two who were still on theirhoneymoon. 

At the door of my room, I pushed a wall-switch that lightedsimultaneously three lamps. In this I had repeated the arrangement usedby me for years in my city apartment. I have a demand for lightsomewhere in my make-up, and no reason for not indulging it. Thereflashed out of the dusk a large lamp upon my writing-table, a tallfloor-lamp beside the piano, and a reading-lamp on a stand beside my bedat the far end of the room. All three were shaded in a smoke-blue androse-color effect that long since had caught my fancy for night work;the shades inset with imitation semi-precious stones, rough-cut thingsof sapphire, tourmaline-pink and baroque pearl. 

I lay emphasis upon this, to make clear how normal, serene and evenfamiliar in effect was the room into which I came. Yet, as I closed thedoor behind me and stood in that softly brilliant radiance, a shuddershook me from head to foot with the violence of an electric shock. Asense of suffocation caught at my throat like an unseen hand. 

Both sensations were gone in the time of a drawn breath, leaving onlyastonishment in their wake. Presently I went on with the purpose thathad brought me upstairs; lifting a portfolio to the table and beginningto unpack the work which I had been doing in New York. As I laid out thefirst sheets of music, there drifted to my ears that vague sound fromthe lake I had heard on my first night visit here, while I stood on thetumble-down porch. The sound that was like the smack of glutinous lips, or some creature drawing itself out of thick, viscid slime. As before, Iwondered what movement of the shallow waters could produce that result. Not the tide, now, for the new dam was up and the lake cut off from LongIsland Sound. The pouring of the waterfall flowed on as a reminder ofthat fact. 

The sound was not repeated. The dusk outside the windows offered nothingunusual to be seen. I finished my unpacking and sat down at mywriting-table. 

I am not accustomed to heed time. There never has been anyone to carewhat hours I kept, and I work best at night. Midnight was long past whenI thought of rest. 

I declare that I thought of nothing more; not even recalling the vagueunease felt on entering the room. A day spent in the fresh air, followedby an evening of hard work and journeyings between the piano and table, had left me utterly weary. When I lay down, it was to sleep at once. 

CHAPTER VI

 "I have made a story that hath not been heard; A great feat of arms that hath not been seen!" --AMENEMHE'ET. 

I woke slowly. It seemed that I struggled to wakefulness as a spentswimmer struggles toward shore. Up, up through deep poles of sleep Idragged myself, driven by some dimly sensed necessity. Peril had stolenupon me in my unconsciousness, a stalking beast. I knew that withnightmare certainty. It was as if my soul stood affrighted beside mybrain, wailing upon its ally to arouse and stand with it against themenace. And my brain answered, but with infinite difficulty; like adrugged warrior who hears the clang of battle and forces numbed limbs tostir, arise and grasp the sword. 

I was awake. Suddenly; the swimmer reaching the surface!

How shall I describe Fear incarnate? The Horror was at the open windowopposite the foot of my bed, staring in upon me with slaveringcovetousness of the prey It watched. I lay there, and felt It seek forme across the darkness with tentacles of evil that groped for some partof me upon which It might lay hold. 

The room was still. Between the draperies, the window showed nothing tothe eye except a dark square faintly tinged with the night luminance ofthe sky. There was nothing to see; nothing to hear. But gradually Ibecame aware of a hideous odor of mould and mildew, of must and dampdecay that loaded the air with disgust. 

I lay there, and opposed the approach of the Thing with all the will ofresistance in me. The sweat poured from my whole body, so that I lay asin water and the drenched linen of my sleeping-suit clung coldly to me. 

It could not pass the defense of my will. I felt the malevolent fury ofIts striving. Like the antennæ of some monstrous insect brushing aboutmy body, I felt Its evil desires wavering about my mental self, examining, searching where It might seize. It had not yet found theweakness It sought. If It did----?

The sickening, vault-like air I must breathe fought for It. So did thedarkness. All this time, or the time that seemed so long, I had no morecommand of my body than a cataleptic patient. Every ounce of force in mehad rushed to support the two warriors of the battle: the brain and willthat opposed the clutching menace. But now, as I grew more and morefully awake, out of very loathing and danger I drew determination. Slowly, painfully, I began to free my right arm and hand from thisparalysis. 

As I advanced in resolution, the Thing seemed to recoil. Inch by inch, Imoved my hand across the bed toward my reading-lamp on the stand besideme. In proportion as I moved, the dreadful tentacles drew back and away. A last effort, and the chain was in my fingers. I jerked spasmodically. 

Rosy light from the lamp flashed over the room. All the quiet comfort ofthe place sprang into view as if to reassure me; the piano open as I hadleft it, the table strewn with my evening's work, each bit of furniture, each drapery or trinket undisturbed. 

The Thing was gone. In the hush I heard my panting breath and the tickof my watch on the stand. It was two o'clock in the morning. As Imechanically read the hour, a cock somewhere shrilled its second callbefore dawn. The Horror had been true to the legendary time ofapparitions. 

Weak and chilled, I presently made an attempt to rise. But at themovement, a wave of sickness swept through me. The room seemed to rockand swing. I had just time to recognize the grip of faintness before Ifell back on the pillow. 

 * * * * *

Vivifying sweetness was in my nostrils, which expanded avidly for thisnew air. Perfume that was a tonic, a subtle elixir; that sparkled uponthe senses, sank suavely and healingly through me, so that I seemed todraw refreshment with each breath. Reluctantly, I aroused more and morein response to this unusual stimulant; which somehow gave delicious restyet drew me from it into life. 

I could have sworn someone had touched me. With some exclamation on mylips, I started up; to find myself in darkness. The lamps I had leftlighted burned no longer. 

This time there was no terror in my awakening. No Thing of nightmarepressed against my window-space. The fragrance persisted; the ghastlysmell of mould and corruption was gone. But I wanted light for all that!Reaching for the lamp beside me on its stand, I found the little chain. I felt the chain draw in my fingers and heard the click that should havemeant light; but no answering brightness sprang up. 

Instead, across the dark came a voice; a voice low-pitched, soft withoutweakness, keen with exultation:

"Victory! Victory! You have no need of light--who conquered in darkness!The Enemy has fled. It has covered the Unspeakable Eyes from the eyes ofa man. By the will of a man Its will has been forbidden. It has draggedItself back to the Barrier and cowers there for this time. Oh, soldieron the dreadful Frontier, be proud, putting off your armor tonight! Beproud, and rest. "

Those practical people who are never unnerved by the intangible, maygauge if they can the weirdness of this address following my firstexperience, and then smile their contempt of me. For I confess to amoment of uncanny chill. The voice was that of the woman who had trailedher braid of hair into my grasp, the night I first slept here. But, howdid she know of the Thing's visit to me? I had not spoken nor uttered acry throughout Its visitation. How could she have knowledge of thatsilent struggle between It and me, or of my escape so narrowly won. How, unless she too----?

I groped for a glass of water left on my stand. I drank, and felt my drythroat relax. 

"Who are you?" I asked. 

A sigh trembled toward me. 

"I am one who stands on the threshold of your beautiful world, as atraveler stands outside a lighted palace, gazing where she may notenter, and feeling the winter about her. "

"Do not suppose me quite a superstitious fool, " I said bruskly. "You area woman. The woman who left a very real braid of hair in my hands, notlong ago, to save herself from capture!"

"Yes. Yet, I am neither more nor less real than the One which came foryou a while since. "

"Then my nightmare was real? A thing of flesh and blood, or clevermechanism? You know it. Perhaps you produced it?"

The rush of my angry suspicion dashed in useless heat against her coolmelancholy. 

"Real? What is real?" she challenged me. "Turn to the sciences that youshould understand better than I, and ask. Stretch out your arm. For amillion years men have vowed you touch empty air. They saw and felt itempty. But now a child knows air swarms with life. In that thinnothingness, crowd and move the distributors of death, disease, health, vigor--existence itself. The water you have just tasted is pure andclear in the glass? Pure? Each drop is an ocean of inhabitants clean andunclean. I speak commonplaces. But is there no knowledge not yetcommonplace? Oh man, with all the unfathomed universe about us, _dare_you pronounce what is real?"

"What is natural, " I began. 

She interrupted me. 

"Doubtless what is not natural cannot and does not exist. Have you, then, measured Nature? He was a great thinker, one of deep knowledge, who compared Man to a child wandering on the shore of a vast ocean andpicking up a pebble here and there. "

"Of what would you convince me? And, why?"

"Of what? Danger! Why? Would you watch a man enter a jungle where somehideous beast crouched in ambush, while you neither warned nor armedhim? I am here to turn you back. I am the native of that country whoruns to cry warning to a stranger; to put into his hand the weapon ofunderstanding. "

So solemn, so urgent a sincerity was in her voice, that again chilltouched me. The clammy dampness of my garments hung on my limbs as areminder of the Thing, real or unreal, that twice had made Its presencefelt beyond denial. Wild as her words might be, their incrediblesuggestion was matched by my experience. I sought with my eyes for her, before answering. The room was dark, yet the darker bulk of furnitureloomed out enough to be distinguishable. No figure was visible, eventraced by the direction of her voice. I was certain that any movement toseek her would mean her flight. 

"Do you mean that you want me to go away from this place?" I questioned. 

The sigh came again, just audibly. 

"Yes. Why should you die?"

Was I wrong in fancying the sigh regretful? Did I not hear a wistfulreluctance in her tone? Excitement ran along my veins like burning oilon flowing water. The woman hidden in the dark, the association of hervoice with the strange, exquisite fragrance I breathed, the thought ofbeauty in her born of that lovely braid of hair I had seized--allblended in a spell of human magic. I have said I was a man much alone, and a lame man who craved adventure. 

"Just now, " I said, "you spoke of some victory. You called me--soldier. "

"Is it not victory to have driven back the Dark One? Is he not a soldierwho, aroused in the night to meet dreadful assault, sets his face to theenemy and battles front to front? Before the Eyes men and women havedied or lost reason, or fled across half the world, broken by fear. Whatare the wars of man with man, compared with a man's battle against theUnknown? I honor you! I salute you! But--soldier alone on the forbiddenFrontier, go! Join your fellows in the world alloted to you; live, norseek to tread where mankind is not sent. "

"How can there be wrong in facing a situation that I did not cause?"

"There is no wrong. There is danger. "

"What danger?" I persisted. 

"Can you ask me?" she retorted with a hint of impatience. "You who havefelt Its grope toward your inner spirit?"

I shuddered, remembering the brush of those antennæ, exploring, examining! But I persisted, beyond my every-day nature. Her speech wasfor me like that liquor distilled from honey that inflamed the Norsemento war fury. 

"You say I came off victor, " I reminded her. 

"Yes. But can you conquer again, and again, and again? Will you not feelstrength fail, health break, madness creep close? Will you not be worndown by the Thing that knows no weariness and fall its prey at last?"

"It will come--often?"

"Until one conquers, It will come. "

I forced away a qualm of panic. 

"How can you know?" I demanded. 

"Ask me not. I do know. "

"But, look here!" I argued. "If as you say, this creature was not meantto meet mankind, how can It come after me this way?"

She seemed to pause, finally answering with reluctance:

"Because, two centuries ago one of the race of man here broke throughthe awful Barrier that rears a wall between human kind and those darkforms of life to which It belongs. For know that a human will to evilcan force a breach in that Barrier, which those on the other side nevercould pass without such aid. "

I neither understood nor believed. At least, I told myself that I didnot believe her wild, legendary explanation of the nightmare Thing thatvisited me. I did not want to believe. Neither did I wish to offend herby saying so!

"You will go, " she presently mistook my silence for surrender. "You arewise as well as brave. Good go with you! Good walk beside you in thathappy world where you live!"

"Wait!" I cried sharply. Her voice had seemed to recede from me, aretreating whisper at the last word. "No! I will not go. I must--I willknow more of you. You are no phantom. Who are you? Where--when can I seeyou in daylight?"

"Never. "

"Why not?"

"I came to hold a light before the dreadful path. The warning is given. "

"But you will come again?"

"Never. "

"What? The Thing will come, and not you?"

"What have I to do with It, who am more helpless before It than you? Go;and give thanks that you may. "

"Listen, " I commanded, as firmly as I could. "I am not going away fromthis house without better reason. All this is too sudden and too new tome. If you have more knowledge than I, you have no right to desert mehalf-convinced of what I should do. "

"I can stay no longer. "

"Why can you not come again?"

"You plan to trap me, " she reproached. 

"No. Word of honor! You shall come and go as you please; I will not makea movement toward you. "

"Not try--to see me, even?" she hesitated. 

"Not even that, if you forbid. "

There was a long pause. 

"Perhaps----" drifted to me, a faint distant word on the wind that hadbegun to stir the tree-branches and flutter through my room. 

She was gone. There sounded a click whose meaning did not at once strikeme, intent as I was upon the girl. Twice I spoke to her, receiving noreply, before judging that I might rise without breaking my promise. Then I recognized the click of a moment before, as that of the electricswitch beside my door. No doubt she had turned off my lights at herentrance and now restored them. I pulled the chain of my reading-lamp, and this time light flashed over the room. 

I had known no one would be there, and no one was. Yet I wasdisappointed. 

As I drew on my dressing-gown I heard a clock downstairs strike four. Not a breath or a step stirred in the house. The damp freshness ofcoming dawn crept in my windows, bringing scents of tansy andbitter-sweet from the fields to strive against the unknown fragrance inmy room. The melancholy depression of the hour weighed upon me. Beneaththe gentle strife of sweet odors, my nostrils seemed to detect a lurkingfoulness of mould and decay. 

I sat down at my desk, to wait beside the lamp for the coming ofsunrise. 

CHAPTER VII

 "For it is well known that Peris and such delicate beings live upon sweet odours as food; but all evil spirits abominate perfumes. "--ORIENTAL MYTHOLOGY. 

The breakfast bell, or rather Phillida's Chinese chimes, merrilysummoned me to the dining-room; a homely spell to exercise the phantomsof the night. 

My little cousin, rosy beyond belief, trim in white middy blouse andblue skirt, was already in her place behind the coffeepot. Vere satopposite her at the round table. They were holding hands across therolls and bacon and eggs, their glances interlocked in a shining contentthat made my solitariness rather drab and dull to my own contemplation. At my clumsy step the picture dissolved, of course. Vere rose whilePhillida welcomed me to my chair and went into a young housewife'spretty solicitude about my fruit and hot eggs. 

The sun glinted across the table. The very servant had a smiling air ofenjoying the occasion. I never had a more pleasant breakfast. A bigbrindle cat purred on the window-sill beside Phillida; no dainty Persianor Angora, but a battered veteran whose nicked ears and scarred tailproved him a battling cat of ring experience. 

"I planned to have a wee white kitten, " Phil explained, while putting asaucer of milk before the feline tough. "One that would wear a ribbon, you know. You remember, Cousin Roger, how Mother always forbade petsbecause she believed animals carry germs? I meant to have a puss, ifever I had a home of my own. This one just walked into the kitchen onthe first day we came here. Ethan said it was a lucky sign when a catcame to a new home. He gave it the meat out of his sandwiches that wehad brought for lunch, and it stayed. So I decided to keep it instead ofa kitten. It really is more cat!"

What footing was here for dreary terrors? In a mirror across the room Iglimpsed my own countenance looking quite as usual. No over-night whitehairs appeared; no upstanding look such as the legend gave to SirSintram after he met the Little Master. 

After the meal, Vere asked me to walk over to the lake with him. 

We strolled through the old orchard toward the dam. This was my side ofthe house. In passing, I looked up at the window against which the Thinghad seemed to press Itself with sickening lust for me. Phillida wasframed in the open square, and shook a dustcloth at us by way ofgreeting and evidence of her busyness. 

The wide, shallow lake lay almost without movement, except at the headof the dam. There the water poured over with foam and tumult, anamber-brown cataract some twenty-odd feet across, to rush on below in awinding stream that grew calmer as it flowed. 

"We must put our lake in order, Vere, " I observed, as we stood on aknoll at the head of the dam. "All this growth of rank vegetation oughtto be pulled up, the banks graded and turfed perhaps, the bottom cleanedup. Water-lilies would look better than cat-tails. "

To my surprise, he did not assent. Instead, he set his foot on a boulderand rested his arm upon his knee; looking into the clear water. 

"Mr. Locke, I just about hate saying what I have to, " he told me in hissober, leisurely fashion. "I expect you won't like it; not at all. Well--best said before you get deeper in. I can't see my way to makefarming this place pay. "

I was bitterly disappointed. Even at the worst estimate of Vere, I hadimagined he would stick the thing out a little longer than this. PoorPhillida's time of happiness should have lasted more than these fewweeks. But the call of New York, of the "lounge lizard's" ease andunhealthy excitement had won already, it seemed. I said nothing at all. The blow was too sore. 

"There are too few acres of arable land, and they're used up, " Vere wascontinuing. "I've seen plenty of impoverished, run-out farms in NewEngland. You could pour money into the soil out of a gold pitcher thesefive years to come, before it began to pay you back. And then your moneymight better have been put anywhere in bank, for profit! I saw that, thefirst week here. Since then I've been looking around for somethingbetter to do. "

"And have found it, of course, " I said bitingly. "Or else you would bedrawing your salary as manager and saying nothing to me of all this!Well, where does poor Phil go, and when?"

He turned his dark-curled head and regarded me with calm surprise. 

"I didn't exactly know that my wife was going anywhere, Mr. Locke. "

"What? You do not mean to leave the farm?"

"Not unless you're tired of our bargain. I've been calculating how tomake it pay. That won't be by planting corn and potatoes and taking awagon-load into town! If you think I'm wrong, call in any practical manwho knows this sort of business. We've got to think closer to win here. That's why I'd like to set the lake to work instead of just prettying itup. "

"The lake, Vere? There isn't enough water-power over the dam to do anymore than run a toy, is there?"

He motioned me nearer to where he stood gazing down. 

"Notice what kind of water this is, Mr. Locke? Brown like forest water, sort of green-lighted because the bottom is like turf; neither mud norsand, but a kind of under-water moss? You see? It's pure and clean, witha little fishy smell about it. Matter of fact, it is forest water! Comesfrom way off yonder, the stream does, before it spreads out into ourlake, here. I borrowed a boat and followed back two miles before it gottoo shallow for me. Boys have caught trout here three times since I'vebeen watching. "

"Well?"

"My father was fish-warden in our district. I learned the business. Ifyou're willing, I can start some trout-raising that ought to pay well. You know, the State is glad to help game preserving, free. "

He proceeded to give me a brief lecture on the subject, in his quiet, unpretentious manner; producing notes and diagrams from his pockets. Hehad written to various authorities and exhibited their replies. He knewexactly what the State would do, what he himself must do, and whatinvestment of money would be required. I listened to him in admirationand astonishment. 

From fish raising, he went on to discuss each acre of the farm; its bestuse in view of its situation, condition, and our needs. We could affordso much labor, it appeared, and no more. We must have certain apparatus;methodically listed with prices. If we used a certain sheltered southfield for a peach orchard, the trees planted should be such an age andhave giant-powder blast deep beds for them in order that they might soonbear fruit. 

When at last he ended his deceptive speech that sounded so lazy whileimplying so much energy, and turned his black eyes from the papers onhis knee to my face, I had been routed long since. 

"Vere, " I said abruptly, "did you know that I thought you were going todesert the farm, when you began to speak?"

He nodded. 

"Yes, I guess so. You don't exactly like me; haven't had any occasionto! You don't judge me a fit match for your cousin. Well, neither wouldanyone else, yet!"

He began to gather his papers together, his attention divided with themwhile he finished his answer:

"There will be plenty of time before that 'yet' runs out. Mightypleasant time, thanks to you, Mr. Locke! Phillida and I expect to enjoybuilding things up as much as we'll enjoy it after they're all built. Meantime, I prize what you're doing all the more because I know how youfeel. Now, if you'd be interested to look over these plans or submitthem to someone you've confidence in, for inspection, I'll just turnthem over to you. "

He had so accurately measured me that I was disconcerted. It was quitetrue that he was compelling my respect, while my first dislike of himstill obstinately lurked in the background of my mind. I feltungenerous, but I would not lie to him. 

"I am a queer fellow, Vere, " I said. "Leave that to time, as you say! Asfor the plans, they are far beyond my scope. A city man, it has been myway to 'phone for an expert when anything was to be done, or to buy whatI fancied and pay the bills. In this case, you are the expert. The plansseem brilliant to me. Certainly they are moderate in cost. Keep them, and carry them out as soon as that may be done. You are master here, notI. "

We walked back together through the sun and freshness of the earlyspring morning. As we neared the house Phillida's voice hailed us. Shewas at my window again, leaning out with her hair wind-ruffled about herface. 

"Cousin Roger, " she summoned me, "I have found out what makes your roomas sweet as a garden of spices. See what it is to be a composercompletely surrounded by royalties, able to buy the most gorgeous scentsto lay on one's pillow! And all enclosed in antique gold!"

She held up some small object that shone in the sunlight. "Throw itdown, " I begged, startled into excitement. 

She complied, laughing. Vere sprang forward, but I made a quicker stepand caught the thing. 

It was one of those filigree balls of gold wrought into openwork, aboutthe size of a walnut, that fine ladies used to wear swung from a chainor ribbon and call a pomander. The toy held a chosen perfume or essencesupposed to be reviving in case miladi felt a swoon or megrim about tooverwhelm her; as ladies did in past centuries and do no longer. 

Whose gentle pity had brought this pomander to my pillow, to help mefrom that faintness which had followed my struggle with the Thing? Whosewas the exquisite, individual fragrance contained in the ball I held? Ihad a vision of a figure, surely light and soft of movement, haloed withsuch matchless hair as the braid I had captured, stealing step by timidstep across my room; within my reach while I lay inert. Perhaps her facehad bent near mine in her doubt of my life or death; hidden eyes hadstudied me in the scanty starlight. 

Oh, for Ethan Vere's good looks and athlete's grace, to lure my ladyfrom her masquerade!

"Where did you buy it, Cousin Roger? 'Fess up!" Phillida's merry voicecoaxed me. 

"It was given to me, " I slowly answered. "I cannot offer it to you, Phil. But I will buy any other pretty thing you fancy, instead, nexttime I go to town. "

She made a gesture of disclaim. 

"I did not mean _that_! Only, do tell me what the perfume is?"

"I was going to ask if you knew. "

"No. Something very expensive and imported, I suppose. Perhaps whoevergave it to you had it made for herself alone, as some wealthy women do. It is the most clinging, yet delicately refreshing scent I ever met. "

"Tuberose, " suggested Vere. 

"Drawls, no. How can you? Like an old-fashioned funeral!" she cried. 

"Tuberose didn't always go to funerals, " he corrected her teasingly, asshe made a face at him. "I remember them growing in my Aunt Bathsheba'sgarden. Creamy looking posies, kind of kin to a gardenia, seems to me!Thick-petalled, like white plush, and holding their sweet smelleverlastingly. But Mr. Locke's perfumery isn't just that, either. Therewas something else grew in that garden--I can't call to mind what Imean. Basil, maybe?"

"The basil plant, that feeds on dead men's brains, " quoted Phil with amock shiver. "You _are_ happy in your ideals, Drawls!"

He laughed. 

"Well, that garden smelled pretty fine when the dew was just warming upin the sun, mornings--and so does this little gilt ball! I'll guess Mr. Locke's lady never got it from France. Smells like old New England. "

There was no reason why a vague chill should creep over me, or thesunshine seem to darken as if a thin veil drifted between me and thesurrounding brightness. Let me say again that no place could have beenmore unlike the traditional haunted house. There hung about it no senseof morbidity or depression. Yet, what was I to think? I was not sick ormad; and the Thing had come to me twice. I turned from the marriedlovers and made my way to the veranda, where I might be alone toconsider the pomander whose perfume was like a diaphanous presencewalking beside me. 

Seated there, in one of the deep willow-chairs Phillida had cushioned inpeacock chintz and marked especially mine by laying my favoritemagazines on its arm, I studied my new trophy of the night. There was asatisfaction in its material solidity. It was real enough, resting in mypalm. 

Yes; but it was not ordinary among its quaint kind! As I picked out thedesign of the gold-work, that fact was borne in upon my mind. Here wasno pattern of scroll or blossom or cupids and hearts. The small spherewas belted with the signs of the Zodiac, beautiful in minute perfection. All the rest of the globe was covered with lace-fine work repeating onegroup of characters over and over. I was not learned enough to tell whatthe characters were, but the whole plainly belonged to those strange, outcast academies of astrology, alchemy--magic, in short. It containedwhat appeared to be a pinkish ball; originally a scented paste rolledround and dried, I judged by peering through the interstices of thegold. 

Had the old-world trinket been left to bewilder me? Why, and by whom?What interest had my lady of the dark in elaborately deceiving me? Whymuffle her identity in mystery? Why the indefinable quaintness oflanguage, the choice of words that made her speech so different fromeven the college-bred Phillida's?

She urged me to leave the house. If she, or anyone associated with herwanted the place left vacant for some reason, why did not the Thing andthe warning come to others of our household group? Vere, Phillida, theSwedish woman, Cristina--all had lived here for weeks without anyexperiences like mine. I had not been told to leave my room, but thehouse. The danger, then, was only for me?

Well, was I to run away, hands over my eyes, at the first alarm?

The gray cat came purring about me and presently leaped upon my knee. Onimpulse, I offered the pomander to its nostrils. The unwinking yelloweyes shut, the beast's powerful claws closed and unclosed withconvulsive pleasure, it breathed with that thirsty eagerness for thescent so familiar to my own senses. 

"Better than catnip, Bagheera?" I questioned. "You wouldn't bolt fromit, either, would you?"

Phillida's battered pet relaxed luxuriously, by way of answer, sniffedtoward the hand I withdrew, and composed itself to sleep. I put thepomander in my waistcoat pocket. 

I could not deny as mere nightmare the Thing which had visited me. Better confront that fact! It was real. Only, real in what sense? Whathuman agency could produce an effect so frightful, an illusion sohideous that I could scarcely bear to recall it here in full daylight, without the use of a sight or sound to confuse the brain?

Had the girl told the truth in her wild explanation? A truth hinted atby alchemists, Pythagoreans, Rosicrucians, pale students of sorcery andmagnificent charlatans, these many centuries? Were there other racesbetween earth and heaven; strange tribes of the middle spaces whosedestinies were fixed and complete as our own, but between whose livesand ours were fixed barriers not to be crossed? Had I met one of thesebeings, inimical to man as a cobra, intelligent as man, hunting Itsvictim by methods unknown to us?

Was I a cheated fool, or a pioneer on the borders of a new country?

Could I meet that Thing tonight, and tomorrow night? Could I bear theagony of Its presence, the stench of death and corruption that was Itsatmosphere? At the mere memory my forehead grew wet. 

The postman's buggy had stopped at our mailbox. Phillida ran down tomeet the event of the morning. Her laughing chatter came back to mewhile she waited, fists thrust in middy pockets, for the old man to sortour letters from his bags. It did not appear so hard to make a womanhappy, I mused. A man might attempt it with hope, if he could butpersuade her to try him. 

My lady had promised to come again. Perhaps, with patience----?

Phillida came across the lawn with an armful of gaudy-covered cataloguesand a handful of letters. 

"Catalogues for Ethan; letters for you, " she called in advance of herarrival. "What an important person you are, Cousin Roger! It alwaysgives me a quivery thrill to realize _who_ you are as well as how niceyou are. Now, isn't that a jumbled speech to tumble out of me?"

I took her tanned little hand along with the letters; letters that wereso many voices summoning me back to pleasant, busy Manhattan. 

"It is a fine speech for a humble person to answer, Phil! But does thatsort of thing matter to you women? What do you love Vere for, at bottom?Because he is strong and supple and has curly hair? No?" as she shookher head. "Because he has worn the uniform, then; proved his courage inwar at sea? Because he had the glamour about him of real adventure andcabaret glitter? Or because he took you away from a life you hated? Or, perhaps, because he is kind and loves you? No! For none of thesereasons? Why, then, love Ethan Vere?"

She stopped vigorously shaking her head in repeated denial, and smiledat me triumphantly. 

"Because he _is_ Ethan Vere, " she promptly responded. "Oh, Cousin Roger, you clever people are so stupid! It would not make any difference at allif Drawls were ugly, or never had been a sailor, or could not skate ordo things, or had not been able to make me happy. It is something verymuch bigger than all that!"

"And all the divorce courts, Phil? The breach of promise suits, and thecouples who make each other miserable?"

"But they never had anything, " she said. "Perhaps they will have it, some day. Don't you know, Cousin Roger, that the most important thingsin the world are those most people never know about?"

I was not sure whether I knew that, or not. After last night, I was notsure of many things. Still, if such gifts were given as she believed, ifit was merely a question of being Ethan Vere--or Roger Locke----?

But I had never seriously considered leaving the adventure. 

CHAPTER VIII

 "The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it. "--HUGO DE ANIMA. 

That evening Vere and I settled the business details of the developmentshe had planned. Also while we three were quietly together, I launched adiscussion that had been gathering in my mind all day while I watchedPhillida. 

"You are doing as efficient work as Vere, " I told her. "In fact, you area most moderate pair! I gave you an open bank account, Phil; and youhave furnished the house for so little that I am amazed. And it is allso gay, so freshly pretty! Being an ignorant man, the details are beyondme. But--one servant? Aren't you working yourself too hard? I hadexpected you to need several. Of course, we are not counting Vere'soutdoor force. "

She turned in her low chair beside the lamp and glanced toward thewindow behind her, before replying. I noticed the action, because amoment before Vere had turned precisely the same way. 

"It is good of you to think of those things, Cousin Roger, " shedeclared. "But, I want to be a real wife to Drawls. I do, indeed! And Ihave it all to learn because I was not brought up for that. Look at thisdish-towel I am hemming. Cristina would laugh at the stitches if shedared, yet they are better than when I began. Some day I shall sew finethings. So it is with all my housekeeping. I think we should begin as wemean to go on, so I have furnished the house for--us. Perhaps if it hadbeen for you alone, I should have chosen satin-wood and tapestry insteadof willow and cretonne. The same way about Cristina. If Ethan and I areto save and earn this lovely place, as you offered, we cannot affordmore than one maid. You understand what I am trying to explain, don'tyou?"

"Yes, " I assented. "Surely! What were you looking for, just now, behindyou?"

"I? Oh, nothing! I just fancied someone had passed by the window andstared in. I can't imagine what made me fancy that. Unless the cat----"She hesitated. 

"Bagheera is asleep under Mr. Locke's chair, " Vere observed casually. 

"Truly, Cousin Roger, I love the way we are living, " she resumed. "It isvery miserable of me, I daresay, not to be more intellectual after allFather and Mother labored with me. But it is so! I want to live this wayall my life; to be busy, and plan things with Ethan, and make them cometrue together. "

Under cover of the table she put her hand into Vere's, and silence heldus a little while. I watched Bagheera the cat, who sat beside my chairstaring with unblinking yellow eyes toward the window across the room. Did I imagine a slight uneasiness in those eyes, a wary readiness ingathered limbs and muscles bulking under the old cat's scant fur? Nowthe tail twitched with a lashing movement. 

Presently Bagheera looked away and relaxed. A moment more, and he curleddown, composing himself to sleep. 

"You like the place, Phil?" I questioned. "You do not find it lonelyhere, or in any way depressing?"

The candor of her surprise told me that no dweller between the worldshad visited her. 

"Cousin Roger? This darling house? Why?"

I passed that question safely, and after a few minutes bade themgood-night. They had a fashion of gazing at one another that made it amatter of necessary kindness to leave them alone together. 

As I made my solitary way upstairs, I will not deny a growingexcitement, or that dread fought with my resolution. Who would keeptryst with me tonight? The Horror or the lady? Both; as each timebefore? If so, which one would come first, and what might be my measureof success or failure? If some trick were being played upon me, I meantto pluck it out of the mystery. 

The quietly pleasant room received me without a hint of the unusual. Ilighted the lamps and sat down to my work. 

The house was still by ten o'clock, all lights out except mine. Atmidnight I lay down in the dark, the pomander under my pillow. Whether Iput the gold ball there from sentiment, or from some absurd fancy aboutits perfume and mystic carving being somehow a talisman against evil, orbecause I feared the trinket might be taken from me during the night, Ishould be troubled to answer. I did place it there, and lay lapped inits sweet odor while the moments dragged past; heavy, slow-footedmoments of strain and dreadful expectation scarcely relieved by a hopeuneasy as fear. 

The cock crowed for the first hour; and for the second. I slept, atlast. When I awoke, level sun-rays were striking across the world. 

Nothing had happened. 

CHAPTER IX

 "These Macedonians are a rude and clownish people that call a spade a spade. "--PLUTARCH. 

Next morning, I took my car and began a systematic investigation of theneighborhood. There proved to be few houses within reasonable distancewhere such a woman as my lady could be lodged. However, I made mycautious inquiries even where the quest seemed useless, resolved toleave no chance untried. No better plan occurred to me than exhibitionof the pomander with a vague story of wishing to return it to a younglady with red-gold hair. But nowhere did a native show recognition ofthe top or the description. 

On my way home I overtook a familiar, travel-stained buggy that inspiredme with a fresh disrespect for my own abilities. Why had I not put myquestion to our rural mail deliverer in the beginning? Surely here was aman who knew everyone and went everywhere!

The old white horse rolled placid eyes toward the car that drew upbeside it, then returned to cropping the young grass by the roadside. The postman looked up from the leather sack open before him, and noddedto me. 

"Morning, Mr. Locke, " he greeted. "Now let me get the right stuff intothis here box, an' I'll sort your family's right out for you. There's asample package of food sworn to make hens lay or kill 'em, for CliffBrown here, that's gone to the bottom of the bag. I don't know butCliff's poultry'd thank me to leave it be! Up it's got to come, though!"

"Will it make them lay?" I asked, watching the ruddy old face peeringinto the sack. 

"I guess it might, if Cliff told 'em they'd have to lay or eat it, judgin' from the smell that sample's put in my bag. "

"Not as sweet as this?" I suggested, and leaned across to lay thepomander in his gnarled hand. 

The familiar expression of acute, almost greedy pleasure flowed into hisface. His nostrils expanded with eager intake of the perfume that seemedan elixir of delight. He said nothing, absorbed in sensation. 

"Do you know of a lady who wears that scent?" I asked. "A lady withbright fair hair, colored like copper-bronze?"

"Not I!" he denied briefly. 

"No one at all like that--with hair warmer in shade than ordinary goldcolor, and a lot of it?"

"No. Not around here, nor anywhere I've been! What do you call thisperfumery, Mr. Locke?"

"I have no idea, " I answered, sharply disappointed. "No one knows exceptthe young lady I am trying to find. Are you sure you cannot help me atall? There is no newcomer in the neighborhood, no visitor at any housewho might be the one I am looking for?"

He shook his head, giving back the pomander with marked reluctance. 

"No one who might be able to tell more than yourself?" I persisted. 

A gleam of humor lit his eyes. He dropped a cardboard cylinder into Mr. Clifford Brown's mailbox and began to sort out my letters. 

"Far as that goes, I guess Mis' Hill don't miss much of what goes onaround here. When she hears a good bit of tattle, she has her husbandhitch up, and she goes drivin' all day. Ain't a house she knows thatdon't get to hear the whole yarn! You know Mis' Royal Hill? Mis' Veregets butter and cheese from her. Might ask her!"

I thanked him and drove on. 

Mrs. Hill, garrulous wife of the farmer who owned the place next toours, was on her porch when I came to a halt before the house. Shegranted me more interest than the other natives upon whom I had calledthat morning; inviting me into her parlor to "set, " when she hadidentified me. But she knew nothing of the object of my quest. 

"I guessed you must be the new owner up to the Michell place, " sheobserved, her beady, faded brown eyes busy with my appearance, pickingup details in avid, darting little glances suggestive of a bird peckingcrumbs. "Cliff Brown said a lame feller had bought it. I don't see asthat little limp cripples you much, the way you can rampus 'round inthat fast automobile of yours! Now, I'm perfectly sound, and I wouldn'tbe paid to drive the thing. You'd ought to get the other fellow to runit for you; the handsome one. I guess you like to do it, though? Writer, ain't you? Books or newspapers?"

I rallied my scattered faculties to answer the machine-gun attack. 

"Music?" she echoed, her narrow, sun-dried face wrinkling into new linesof inquisitiveness. "They said you had a piano in your bedroom, but Ithought they were just foolin' me! Seems I never heard of havin' a pianoupstairs. Most folks like to show 'em off in the parlor. Must be kind offunny, takin' your company upstairs to play for 'em. But then it's kindof a funny thing for a man to take to, anyhow! I got a niece ten yearsold next August who can play piano so good there don't seem anythin'left to learn her, so----! But there ain't no use of you drivin' 'roundhere lookin' for a fair-headed girl, Mr. Locke. The Slav folk down inthe shanties by the post road are about the only light-complected onesin this neighborhood. Somehow, we run mostly to plain brown. SenatorAllen has two girls, but they're only home from a boardin' school forvacation. How do you like your place?"

"Very much, " I assured her. "Only, I do not know a great deal about it, yet. Its history, I mean. Are there any interesting stories about thehouse? You know, we city people like a nice legend or ghost story totell our friends when they come to visit us. "

She chuckled, swinging in her plush-covered rocking-chair, arms foldedon her meagre breast. 

"Guess you'll have to make one up! I never heard of none. The Michellfamily always owned it--and they were so stiff respectable an' uprighteveryone was scared of 'em! Most of the men were clergymen in theirtime. The last, Reverend Cotton Mather Michell, went abroad to foreignparts for missionary work with the heathen, twenty-odd years ago; an'died there. He never married, so the family's run out. The Michells wereawful hard on women; called 'em vessels of wrath an' beguilers of Adam. Preached it right out of the pulpit--so I guess no girl in these partscould have been hired to wed with him, if he'd wanted. His mother diedwhen he was born, so he'd had no softenin' influence. After news came ofhis death, the house was shut up 'till you bought it. My, how you'vechanged it, already! I'd admire to go through it. "

When I had invited her to call on Phillida and inspect our domicile, andpaid due thanks for information received, she followed me out to thecar. 

"All this land 'round here is old and full of Indian relics, " sheremarked. "Over to the Sound where the swamps used to be, there was lotsof fightin' with savages. An' they say a witch was stoned to death wherethe Catholic convent stands now, on the road up above your place. So Iguess you can figure out a story to tell your company, if you like. "

"A convent?" I repeated, my attention caught by a new possibility. "Dothey, perhaps, have visitors there, ladies in retreat for a time, asconvents often do abroad?"

Mrs. Hill laughed, shaking her tightly-combed head. 

"No hope of your girl there, " she chuckled. "They're the strictestsisterhood in America, folks say. Poor Clares, I think they're called. No one, not even their relations, ever see their faces after they join. They're not allowed to talk to each other, even. Just stay in theircells, an' pray, even in the middle of the night, an' shave their headsan' live on a few vegetables an' dry bread. "

I laughed with her. Certainly no convent would harbor my lady ofmarvelous tresses and magical perfume, of wild fancies and hereticaltheories. That thought of mine was indeed far afield. But where, then, was I next to seek?

I made a detour and used some strategy to gain a view of the Senator'sdaughters. They proved to be brunettes who wore their locks croppedafter the fashion of certain Greenwich villagers. My disappointment wasnot great; my lady was not suggestive of a boarding-school miss. But Ihad hoped to find somewhere a trace of the copper-bronze head whoseroyalty of hair I had shorn as the traitors shore King Childeric'sGothic locks. 

I drove home with a sense of blankness upon me. Suppose she never cameagain? Suppose the episode was ended? Not even freedom from the Thingcould compensate for the baffled adventure. 

Think of the lame feller with an Adventure!

CHAPTER X

 "Plato expresses four kinds of Mania--Firstly, the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to Love. "--PREFACE TO ZANONI. 

For myself, I have always found that excitement stimulates imagination. There are others, I know, who can do no creative work except when allwithin and without is lulled and calm. Perhaps I have too much calm asan ordinary thing! That evening, when I went to my room, lighted mylamps and closed my door, I stood alone for awhile breathing the mingledsweetness of the country air and the pomander ball. In that interval, there came to me, complete and whole as a gift thrust into my hand, themelody which an enthusiastic publisher since assured me has reachedevery ear in America. 

As to that extravagant statement, I can only measure by the preposterousamount of money the melody has brought me. Perhaps there is a magicabout it. For myself, I cannot hear it--ground on a street-organ, givenon the stage, played on a phonograph record or delicately rendered by anorchestra--without feeling again the exaltation and enchantment of thatnight. 

I flung myself down at my writing-table, tossing my former work rightand left to make room for this. If it should escape before I could setit down! If the least of those airy cadences should be lost!

At three o'clock in the morning I came back to realization of time andplace. The composition was finished; it stood up before me like a flowerraised over-night. Eight hours had passed since I sat down to the work, after dinner. I was tired. As I began to draw into a pile the sheets ofpaper I had covered with notes, weariness gripped me like a hand. 

Eight hours? If I had shoveled in a ditch twice that long I could havefelt no more exhausted. Yielding to drained fatigue of mind and body, Idropped my head upon the arms I folded upon the table. My hot, strainedeyes closed with relief, my stiff fingers relaxed. Rest and contentflowed over me; my work was done, and good. 

Rest passed into sleep, no doubt. 

The sleep could not have been long, for not many hours remained beforedawn. When I started awake and lifted my head, I found the room indarkness. A perfume was in the air, and the sense of a presence scarcelymore tangible than the perfume. Even in the first dazed moment, I knewmy lady had come again. 

"Do not rise!" her murmuring voice cautioned me. "Unless you wish me togo?"

"No!"

"I am here because I promised to come. It was not wise of you to askthat of me. "

"Then I prefer folly to wisdom, " I answered, steadying myself to fullwakefulness. "Or, rather, I am not sure that you can decide for me whichis which!"

"Why? After all, why? Just--curiosity?"

"You, who speak so learnedly of magic and sorcery, " I retorted, smilingunder cover of the darkness, "have you never heard of the white magicconjured by a tress of hair, a perfume ball, and a voice sweeter thanthe perfume? An image of wax does not melt before a witch's fire soeasily as a man before these things. "

"My hair pleased you?" she questioned naïvely. 

"Or so easily as a woman melts before admiration!" I supplemented. "I amdelighted to prove you human, mystic lady. Please me? Could anyone failto be pleased with that most magnificent braid? But how can either youor I forgive the cruelty that took it from its owner? Why did you cut itoff?"

"So little of it! And I did not know you, then. "

"Little? That braid?"

"It reached below my knee, now it is but little less, " she answered withindifference. "We all have such hair. "

I gasped. My imagination painted the picture of all that shiningrichness enwrapping a slim young body. It was fantastic beyond belief tosit there at my desk, beneath my fingers the tools of sober, workadaylife, and stare into the dark room that held the reality of my vision. She was there, but I could not rise and find her. She was opposite myeyes, but my promise forbade me to touch the lamp and see her. 

"Who are 'we'?" I slowly followed her last sentence. 

A sigh answered me. On the silence, a memory floated to me of the storyshe had told while I held her prisoner that first night:

"_The woman sits in her low chair. The fire-shine is bright in her eyesand in her hair. On either side, her hair flows down to the floor. _"

Yes, by legend young witches had such hair; sylphs, undines and all ofthe airy race of Lilith. I thrust absurdities away from me and offered aquotation to fill the pause:

 "'I met a lady in the meads' 'Full beautiful; a faery's child. ' 'Her hair was long, her foot was light, ' 'And her eyes were wild. '"

She did not laugh, or put away the suggestion. When I had decided thatshe did not mean to reply, and was seeking my mind for new speech todetain her with me, she finally spoke what seemed another quotation:

"'A spirit--one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neitherdeparted souls nor angels; concerning whom Josephus and Michael Psellusof Constantinople may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there isno climate or element without one or more. ' Have you read the writingsof the learned Jew or of the Platonist, you who are so very bold?"

"Neither, " I meekly admitted. "But neither ancient gentleman couldconvince me that you are unhuman. "

Her answer was just audible:

"Not I--but, It!"

Now I was silenced, for dreadful and uncanny was that whisper in thedark to a man who had met here in this room What I had met. 

"Tell me more of this Thing without a name, " I urged, mastering myreluctance to evoke even the idea of what the blood curdled to recall. "Why does It hate me?"

"What can I tell you? Even in your world, does not evil hate good asnaturally as good recoils from evil? But this One has another causealso!" She hesitated. "And you yourself? How have you challenged andmocked It this very night? Here, where It glooms, you have dared bringthe high joy of the artist who creates? Oh, brave, brave!--he who couldawait alone the visit of the Unspeakable, in the chamber into which theLoathsome Eyes have looked, and write the music of hope and beauty!"

I started, with a hot rush of surprise and pleasure. She had heard mywork. She approved it. More than that, not to her was I the lame fellowwho ought to get a better man to drive his car!

"Nor should you, who have two worlds of your own, " she added in a lowertone, "doubt the existence of many both dark and bright. Go, then, outof this haunted place where a human madness broke through the Barrier. Be satisfied with the victories you have had. Let the visits of the DarkOne fade into mere nightmare; and know I am no more a living woman thanFranchina Descartes. "

"Who was she?"

"Have you not read that early in the seventeenth century there appearedin Paris the philosopher Descartes, accompanied by the figure of abeautiful woman? She moved, spoke, and seemed life itself; but Descartesdeclared she was an automaton, a masterpiece of mechanism he himself hadmade. Yet many refused to believe his story, declaring he had by sorcerycompelled a spirit to serve him in this form. He called her Franchina, his daughter. "

"And the truth?"

"I have told you all the record tells. She was soon lost. Descartes tookher with him upon a journey by sea; when, a storm arising, thesuperstitious captain of the vessel threw the magic beauty into theMediterranean. "

"Thank you. But, are you fairy or automaton?"

"Do not laugh, " she exclaimed with sudden passion. "You know I would saythat I have no part in the world of men and women. Not through me shallthe ancient dread seize a new life. A little time, now, then the doorswill close upon me as the sea closed over Franchina. I will not takewith me the memory of a wrong done to you. I shall never come to thishouse after tonight. If you would give me a happiness, promise me youwill leave, too. "

I had known we should come to this point. After a moment, I spoke asquietly as I could:

"Tell me your name. "

She had not expected that question. I think she might have withheld theanswer, given time to reflect. But as it was, she replied docilely as abidden child:

"Desire Michell. "

The name fell quaintly on both hearing and fancy, with a rustle of earlyNew England tradition. Desire! I repeated it inwardly with satisfactionbefore I answered her. 

"Thank you. Now, I, Roger Locke, do promise you, Desire Michell, that Iwill not leave this house until these matters are plainer to myunderstanding, whether you go or stay. But if you go and come no more, then I surely shall stay until I find a way to trace you or until theThing kills me. "

"No!"

"Yes. "

There was a pause. Then, to my utter dismay, I heard her sobbing throughthe dark. 

"Why do you tempt me?" she reproached. "Is it not hard enough, my duty?For me it is such pleasure to be here--to leave for a while theloneliness and chill of my narrow place! But you, so rich in all things, free and happy--how should it matter to you if a voice in the darkspeaks or is silent? Let me go. "

Wonder and exulting sense of power filled me. 

"I can keep you, then?" I asked. 

"I am--so weak. "

"Desire Michell, I am as alone as you can be, in my real life. I havegone apart from much that occupies men and women; gaining and losing indifferent ways. One of the gains is freedom to dispose of myself withoutgrief or loss to anyone, except the perfunctory regret of friends. Willyou believe there is no risk that I would not take for a few hours withyou? Even with your voice in the dark? Come to me as you can, let ustake what time we may, and the chances be mine. "

"But that is folly! You do not know. To protect you I must go. "

"I refuse the protection. Stay! If there is sorrow in knowing you, Iaccept it. I understand nothing. I only beg you not to turn me back tothe commonplace emptiness of life before I found you. Indeed, I will notbe sent away. "

"If I yield, you will reproach me some day. "

"Never. "

"It could only be like this--that we should speak a few times before thegates close upon me. "

"What gates?"

"I cannot tell you. "

"Very well, " I took what the moment would grant me. "That is a bargain. Yet, what safety lies in secrecy between us? If we are to help eachother, as I hope, would not plain openness be best? You will tell me nomore about yourself? Very well. Tell me something more about the enemyin the dark whom I am to meet. You have hinted that It has a specialmotive for fixing hate upon me beyond mere malignance toward mankind. What is that motive?"

"Ask me not, " she faintly refused me. 

"I do ask you. My ignorance of everything concerned is a heavy drawbackin this combat. Arm me with a little understanding. What moves Itagainst me?"

The pause following was filled with a sense of difficulty and recoil, her struggle against some terrible reluctance. So painful was thateffort, somehow clearly communicated to me, that I was about to devourmy curiosity and withdraw the question when her whisper just reached myhearing:

"Jealousy!"

"Jealousy? Of what? For whom?"

"For--me. "

The monstrous implication sank slowly into my understanding; thenbrought me erect, gripping the edge of the table lest I forget restraintand move toward her. 

"By what right?" I cried. "By what claim? Desire Michell, what has theHorror to do with you?"

The vehemence and heat of my cry struck a shock through the hushed roomdistinct as the shattering of crystal. There was no answer, no movement;no rebuke of my movement. I was alone. With that confession she hadfled. 

My cry had been louder than I knew. Presently I heard a door open. Stepssounded along the hall from the rooms on the opposite side of the house. Someone knocked hesitatingly. 

"Are you all right, Mr. Locke?" Vere's voice came through the panels. 

I crossed to the door and opened it. He stood at the threshold, anelectric torch in his hand. 

"We thought you called, " he apologized. "I thought maybe you were sick, or wanted something; and no light showed around your door. "

I found the wall switch and turned on the lamps. As on the lastoccasion, she had switched the lights off there, beyond my reach unlessI broke my promise not to move about the room while she remained myguest. 

"Come in, " I invited him. "Much obliged to you and Phillida for lookingme up! I had been working late and dropped asleep in my chair, with anightmare as the result. "

It was pleasant to have his normal presence, prosaic in bathrobe andpajamas, in my cheerfully lighted room. His dark eyes glanced toward themusic-scrawled papers scattered about, then returned to meet my eyessmilingly. 

"We heard some of that work, " he admitted. "Phil and I--well, I guess wewere guilty of sitting on the stairs to hear you play it over. I neverlistened to a tune that took hold of me, kind of, like that one. We'dcertainly prize hearing all of it together, sometime, if you didn'tmind. "

The warmth of achievement flowed again in me. I crossed to the piano toassemble the finished sheets, answering him with one of thoseexpressions of thanks artists use to cloak modestly their sleek inwardvanity. I was really grateful for this first criticism that soothed meback to the reality of my own world. 

Across the top of the uppermost sheet of music, in small, square scriptquaint as the pomander, was written a quotation strange to me:

"We walk upon the shadows of hills across a level thrown, and pant likeclimbers. "

I did not know that I had read the words aloud until Vere answered them. 

"So we do! I guess there is more panting over shadows and less realmountain-climbing done by us humans than most folks would believe. Mostroads turn off to easy ways before we reach the hills we make such afuss about. Who wrote that, Mr. Locke?"

"I don't know, " I replied vaguely, intent upon Desire Michell's meaningin leaving this to me. 

He nodded, and turned leisurely to go. 

"Kind of seems to me as if he must have felt like you did when you wrotethat piece tonight, " he observed diffidently. "As if trouble did notamount to much, taken right. I'll get back to Phil, now. She might beanxious. "

Could that be what Desire had meant me to understand? Was there indeedsome quality of courage----?

That is why my most successful composition from the standpoint of moneyand popularity went to the publisher under the title, "Shadows ofHills. " Of course no one connected the allusion. The generalinterpretation was best expressed by the cover design of the firstprinting: a sketch of a mountain-shaded lake on which floated a canoecontaining two young persons. I was well pleased to have it so. 

But--in what land unknown to man towered the vast mountains in whoseshadow I panted and strove? Or was my foot indeed upon the mountainitself?

I did not know. I do not know, now. 

CHAPTER XI

 "If the Dreamer finds himself in an unknown place, ignorant of the country and the people, let him be aware that such place is to be understood of the Other World. "--ONEIROCRITICA ACHMETIS. 

In the morning I drove down to New York. There were affairs demandingattention. Also, I was pressed by an eagerness to get my over-night workinto the hands of the publisher. To be exact, I wanted to put themanuscript out of reach of the Thing at the house. Without reason, I hadawakened with that instinct strong within me. 

The atmosphere of the city was tonic. Merely driving through thefriendly, crowded streets was an exhilaration. The practical employmentof the day broomed away fantastic cobwebs. In the evening I turnedtoward Connecticut with a feeling of leaving home behind me. But I wouldnot stay away from the house for a night, risking that Desire Michellmight come and find me missing. She might believe I had been seized bycowardice and deserted. She might never return. 

I will not deny that I had lied to her. There was no intention in me ofaccepting her fleeting visits as the utmost she could give. I meant tosnatch her out of darkness and mystery, to set her in the wholesomesunlight where Phillida flitted happily. If I could prevent, those gatesof which she vaguely spoke never should close between us. But it wasplain that I must tread warily. Once frightened away, how could she befound? Her home, her history, even her face, were unknown to me. Tracingher by a perfume and a tress of hair had been tried, and failed. Of herconnection with the Dark Thing I refused to think too deeply. Herconnection with me must come first. 

It was not until I passed the cottage of Mrs. Hill, glimmering whitelyin the starlight, where the road made an angle toward the farm, that Irecalled our talk in her "best room. "

"_The Michell family always owned it. The Reverend Cotton Mather Michellwent to foreign parts for missionary work twenty years ago and diedthere----_"

My lady of the night was Desire Michell. A clue?

"_He never married, so the family's run out. _"

It was damp here in the hollow where the road dipped down. A chill rancoldly over me. 

Arrived at the garage which had taken the place of our tumble-down barn, I put the car away as quietly as possible. Ten o'clock had struck as Ipassed through the last village, and our household was asleep. Movingwithout unnecessary noise, I crossed to the house. Bagheera, the cat, padded across the porch to meet me and rubbed himself around my legswhile I stooped to put the latch-key in the lock. 

As the key slid in place, I heard the waterfall over the dam abruptlychange the sound of its flow, swelling and accelerating as when a gustof wind hurries a greater volume of water over the brink. But there wasno wind. Immediately followed that sound from the lake which I can likento nothing better than the smack of huge lips unclosing, or the suck ofa thick body drawing itself from a bed of mud. The cat thrust himselfviolently between my feet and pressed against the house-door uttering awhimpering mew of urgency. Startled, I looked in the direction of thelake. 

At this distance it showed as a mere expanse of darkness, only thereflection of a star here and there revealing the surface as water. Whatelse could be shown, I rebuked my nerves by querying of them; and turnedthe key. Bagheera rushed into the hall when the door opened wide enoughto admit his body. I followed more sedately and closed the door behindus both. 

Now I was not acquainted with Bagheera's night privileges. Did Phillidaallow him in the house, or not? After an instant's consideration, I bentand picked him up from his repose on the hall rug. He should spend thenight shut in with me, out of mischief yet comfortable. Purring in thecurve of my arm, he was carried upstairs without objection on his part. Until we reached my room! On its threshold I felt his body stiffen; hisyellow eyes snapped open alertly. Cat antipathy to a strange place, Ireflected, amused, as I switched on the lights. 

"All right, Bagheera, " I spoke soothingly, and put him upon the rug. 

He bounded erect, fur bristling, tail lashing from side to side afterthe fashion of a miniature panther. When I stooped to stroke him, heeluded my hand. In a gliding run, body crouched, ears flattened, he spedtoward the doorway, was through it and gone. 

Well, I decided, he could not be pursued all through the house. It wouldbe easier to explain him to Phillida next morning. I was tired;pleasantly tired. The day had been filled with the enthusiasm andcongratulations of my associates, with conferences and plans forlaunching the new music via theatres and advertising. It ought to "gobig, " they assured me. In my optimism of mood, I wondered if I had notalready driven off the Dark Thing, since the girl had come to me thenight past without It appearing before or afterward. Perhaps, woman-timid, she exaggerated the danger and It had retreated after thesecond failure to overpower me. 

I fell asleep with a tranquil conviction that nothing would disturb myrest this night. 

 * * * * *

Stillness enveloped me, absolute, desolate. Silence contained me. Yetthe thought of another scorched against my understanding in a burningcommunication of intelligence. 

"Man, " It commanded, "I am here. Fear!"

And I knew that which was my body did fear to the point of death, butthat which was myself stood up in revolt. 

"Crouch, " It bade. "Crouch, pygmy, and beg. Fear! The blood crawls inthe veins, the heart checks, the nerves shrink and wither--man, yourlife wanes thin and faint. Down--shall your race affront mine?"

My heart did stagger and beat slow. Life crept a sluggish current. Butthere was another force that stiffened to resistance, and gathereditself to compact strength within me. 

"No, " my thought refused the dark intelligence. "I am not yours. Commandyour own, not me. "

"Weakling, you have touched that which is mine. Into my path you havedared step. Back--for in my breath you die!"

The air my lungs drew in was foul and poisonous. With more and moredifficulty my heart labored. Confused memories came to me of men founddead in their beds in haunted rooms. Would morning find me so? Betterthat way than to yield to the Thing! Better----

I struggled erect; or fancied so. 

Now I saw myself as one who stood with folded arms fronting a breach ina colossal wall. Huge, immeasurably huge that cliff reared itself beyondthe sight and ranged away on either side into unknown distances, dullyglistening like gray ice, unbroken save in this place. The gray strandon which I stood was a narrow strip following the foot of the wall. Behind me lay a vast, unmoving ocean banked over with an all-concealingmist. Not a ripple stirred along that weird beach, or a ray changed thefixed gray twilight. And I was afraid, for my danger was not of thecommon dangers of mankind, but that which freezes the blood of man whenhe draws near the supernatural; the ancient fear. 

I stood there, while sweat poured painfully from me, and fronted myenemy who pressed me hard. 

The Thing was at the breach, couched in the great cleft that split theBarrier, darkness within darkness. Unseen, I felt the glare of Its hatebeat upon me. From It emanated deathly cold, like the nearness of aniceberg in the night, with an odor of damp and mold. 

"Puny earth-dweller, lost here, " Its menace breathed, "what keeps youfrom destruction? For you the circle has not been traced nor thepentagram fixed, for you no law has been thrust down. Trespass is death. Die, then. "

Only my will held It from me, and I felt that will reel in sickenedbewilderment. I had no strength to answer, only the steadfast instinctto oppose. 

The Thing did not pass. There in the breach It ravened for me, thrustItself toward me, pressed against the thin veil of separation betweenus. I saw nothing, yet knew where It raised Itself, gigantic informlessness more dreadful than any shape. Its whispered threats brokeagainst me like an evil surf. 

"Man, the prey is mine. Would you challenge me? The woman is mine by thepact of centuries. Save yourself. Escape. "

The woman? Startled wonder filled me. Was I then fighting for DesireMichell?

Out of the air I was answered as if her voice had spoken; certainty cameto grip me as if with her small hands. She had no help but in me. If Ifell, she fell. If I stood firm----? Exultant resolve flared strong andhigh within me. My will to protect leaped forward. 

The Thing shrank. It dwindled back through the gap in the Barrier. Butas It fled, a last venomous message drifted to me:

"Again! And again! Tire but once, pygmy----!"

 * * * * *

I was sitting up in bed in my lighted room, my fingers clutching thechain of the lamp beside me. Was some dark bulk just fading from beyondmy window? Or was I still dreaming?

I was trembling with cold, drenched as with water so that my relaxinghand made a wet mark on the table beneath the lamp. This much might havebeen caused by nightmare. But what sane man had nightmares like these?

When I was able, I rose, changed to dry garments and wrapped myself in aheavy bathrobe. There was an electric coffee service in my room kept foroccasions when I worked late into the night. I made strong black coffeenow and drank it as near boiling as practicable. Presently the bloodagain moved warmly in my veins. 

Then I knew that the chill in the room was not a delusion of my chilledbody. I was warm, yet the air around me remained moist and cold, unlikea summer night. It seemed air strangely thickened and soiled, as purewater may be muddied by the passage of some unclean body. In thisatmosphere persisted a fetid smell of mold and decay, warring with thehomely scent of coffee and the fragrance of the pomander beneath mypillow. 

I was more shaken, more exhausted by this encounter with the unknownthan by either of my former experiences. A fact which drove home thegrim farewell of my enemy! _Tire but once, pygmy----!_ Desire herselfhad foretold that the dark Thing would wear me down. 

Well, perhaps! But not without fighting for Its victory. At least Iwould be no supine victim. Already I had forced my way--where? Where wasthat Barrier before which I had stood? Awe sank coldly through me atmemory of that colossal land where I was pygmy indeed, an insolent humanintruder upon the unhuman. What other shapes of dread stalked andwatched beyond that titanic wall? By what swollen conceit could I hopeto win against Them?

I would not consider escape by flight, even if the end had been certaindestruction. But my head sank to my hands beneath the weight of aprofound depression and discouragement. 

It was the hour before dawn, traditionally the worst for man. The hoursuperstition sets apart for its own, when the life flame burns lowest. At a distance a dog had treed some little wood creature, and bayedmonotonously. 

There was a weakness at the core of my strength. I waged this combat forthe sake of Desire Michell. _But what was she to whom the Thing laidclaim by the pact of centuries?_

Darkness began to tinge with light. Pale gray filtered into the duskwith grudging slowness. As day approached I saw that a fog enfolded thehouse in vapor, stealing into the room in coils and swirls like thinsmoke. The lamps looked sickly and dim. I forced away my languor, roseand walked to the nearest window. 

Something was moving up the slope from the lake; a dim shape about whichthe fog clung in steamy billows. My shaken nerves thrilled unpleasantly. What stirred at this empty hour? What should loom so tall?

A moment later the figure was near enough to be distinguished as EthanVere, bearing several long fishing-rods over his shoulder. 

"Vere!" I hailed him, with mingled relief and utter disgust with myself. "Anything going on so early?"

He looked up at me--I never saw Vere startled--and came on to stopbeneath the window. Taking off his cap, he ran his fingers through hisblack curls, pushing their wetness from his forehead. I noticed how themists painted him with a spectral pallor. 

"Good morning, Mr. Locke, " he greeted me. "Just as I've been thinking, there are some big snapping-turtles about the lake and creek. I guessedthere'd be some war between them and me before that water was safe foruse! One of the fellows dragged a duck under, drowned it and startedfeeding right before my eyes, just now. "

"We will have to get a canoe. "

He nodded placid assent. 

"That'll look pretty on the lake. Phillida will like it. But I guessI'll keep a homely old flat-bottomed punt out of sight around somecorner for work. The other craft goes over too prompt for jobs likemine, and don't hold enough. I'm going to fetch my rifle, now. I'dadmire to blow that duck-eater's ugly head off. "

"I will get into some clothes and be right with you, " I invited myselfto the hunt. 

"I'd like to have you, " he replied with his quaint politeness. Therewere times when I could visualize Vere's New England mother as if I hadknown her. 

The human interlude had been enough to dispel the black humors of thenight. When I was ready to go out, I opened the drawer that held thecopper-bronze braid and took it into my hand. How vital with youth itscrisp resilience felt in my clasp, I thought; young, too, were itsluxuriance and shining color. Nonsense, indeed, to fancy ghostlinesshere or the passing of musty centuries over the head that had worn thistress! A flood of reassurance rose high in me. Whatever the Thing mightbe, I would trust the girl Desire Michell. Yes, and for her I wouldstand fast at that Barrier until victory declared for the enemy or forme. Until It passed me, It should not reach her. 

I went downstairs to join Vere. The brightening mist was cool and fresh. There was neither horror nor defeat in the promise of the morning. 

CHAPTER XII

 "In vain I called on Rest to come and stay. We were but seated at the festival Of many covers, when One cried: 'Away!'" --ROSE GARDEN OF SA'ADI. 

Now I entered a time of experiences differing at every point, yetinterwoven closely, so that my days might compare to a rope whosestrands are of violently contrasted colors. The rope would beinharmonious, startling to the eye, but strong to bind and hold. As Iwas bound and held!

All day I lived in the wholesome household atmosphere evoked by Vere andPhillida. It is impossible to describe the sunny charm they createdabout the commonplace. Our gay, simple breakfasts where Phillidapresided in crisp middy blouse or flowered smock; where the gray cat saton the arm of Vere's chair, speculative yellow eye observant of hismaster's carving, while the Swedish Cristina served us her good foodwith the spice of an occasional comment on farm or neighborhoodevents--how perfect a beginning for the day! How stale beside ourbreeze-swept table was any board at which I had ever sat! I do declarethat I have never seen a more winning face than the bright one of mylittle cousin whom her world had pronounced "plain. " Vere and I baskedin her sunbeams gratefully. 

Afterward, we each had our work. Of the three, Vere was the mostindustrious; slow, steady and unsparing of himself to a degree thataccomplished surprising results. Phillida flitted over the place indoorsand out, managing the house, following Vere about, driving to village ortown with me on purchasing trips for our supplies. I did rather more ofmy own work than usual, that summer, and consequently had more of thecommercial side to employ me. 

A healthy, normal life? Yes--until the hours between midnight and dawn. 

I never knew when I laid down at night whether I should sleep until sunand morning overlay the countryside; whether the whispering call ofDesire Michell would summon me to an hour more exquisite than reality, less satisfying than a dream, or whether I should leap intoconsciousness of the Loathsome Eyes fixed coldly malignant upon me whilemy enemy's inhuman hate groped toward me across the darkness Itspresence fouled. 

For my two guests kept their promises. 

If I speak briefly of the coming of the Thing during this time, I do sobecause the mind shrinks from past pain. It came again, and again. Itcraftily used the torture of irregularity in Its coming. For days theremight be a respite, then It would haunt me nights in succession until myphysical endurance was almost spent. 

I have stood before the breach in that Barrier, fighting that nightmareduel, until the place of colossal desolation, last frontier the humanrace might hope to keep, became as well known to me as a landscape onearth. Yet the effect of the Thing's assaults upon me never lessened. Onthe contrary, the horror gained in strength. A dreadful familiarity grewbetween It and me. Communication flowed more readily between us withuse. I will not set down, perhaps I dare not set down the intolerablewickedness of Its alternate menaces and offered bribes. Contact with Itsintelligence poisoned. 

There were nights when It was dumb, when all Its monstrous powerconcentrated and bore upon me, Its will to destroy locked with my will. My victory was that I lived. 

 * * * * *

In the shadow, Desire Michell and I drew closer to one another. 

How can I tell of a love that grew without sight? So much of the love ofromance and history is a matter of flower-petal complexions, heart-consuming eyes, satin lips, and all the form and color that makebeauty. How can I make clear a love that grew strong and passionatelydemanding, knew delicate coquetries of advance and evasion, intimacy ofminds like the meeting of eyes in understanding--all in the dark? Theblind might comprehend. But the blind have a physical communication wehad not; touch has enchantments of its own. 

Every night, near midnight, I switched off the lights and waited in thechair at my writing-table, where I was accustomed to work. If she hadnot come by two o'clock, I learned to know she would not visit me thatnight. I might sleep in that certainty. A strange tryst I kept there inthe dark; listening to the flow of the waterfall from the lake, loud inthat dead hour's stillness, or hearing the soft, incessant sounds ofinsect life awake in trees and fields. If she came--a drift of perfume, a movement slight as a curtain stirred by the wind, then an hour withsuch a companion as the ancient magician might have drawn out of the airto his nine mystic lamps. 

Strange, fantastic tales she told me, spun of fancies luminous and frailas threads of glass. She could not speak without betraying her deeplearning in sciences rejected and forgotten by the modern world. Alchemy, astrology, geomancy furnished her speech with allusions blankto my ignorance; which she most gently and politely enlightened when Iconfessed. I learned that the Green Lion of Paracelsus was not a beast, but a recipe for making gold; that Salamandar's Feather was better knowntoday as asbestos; and that the Emerald Table was by no means an articleof furniture. I give these examples merely by way of illustration. 

On the other side of the shield held between us, I soon discovered thatshe knew no more of modern city life than a well-taught child who hasnever left home. She listened eagerly to accounts of theatres andrestaurants. The history of Phillida and Ethan Vere seemed to her moremoving and wonderful than any story she could tell me. I was amazed andhumbled to find that she rated my ability to make music as a lofty artamong the occult sciences. 

Of the evil Thing that haunted me, we came to say little. To press herwith questions meant to end her visit, I found by experience. When Ispoke of that strand between the Barrier and the gray mist-hidden sea, her passion of distress closed all intercourse with the plea that I goaway at once, while escape was possible, while life remained mine. Sofor the most part I curbed my tongue and my consuming curiosity; notfrom consideration, but of necessity. 

One night I asked her how the dark Thing spoke to me, by what medium ofcommunication. 

"Spirits of all orders can speak to man in every language, so long asthey are face to face, " she answered, with a faint surprise at my lackof knowledge. "'_When they turn to man, they come into use of hislanguage and no longer remember their own, but as soon as they turn fromman they resume their own language, and forget his. _'

"But they themselves are unaware of this fact, for they utter thought tothought by direct intelligence. So if angel or demon turns his back toyou, Roger, you may not make him hear you though you call with greatforce. "

"How do you know that, Desire?"

"But by simple reading! Do not Ennemoser and many writers record it?"

"Have you spoken to such beings, Desire?"

The question was rash, but it escaped me before I could check theimpulse. To my relief, she answered without resentment:

"No. "

"No? The Thing--the enemy that comes to me has never spoken to you?"

"No. "

I was silent in amazement and incredulity. The dark creature claimedher, she declared herself helpless to escape from that dominion intonormal life, and yet It never had spoken to her? It spoke to me, astranger most ignorant, and not to the seeress who was familiar with Itsexistence and the lore which linked humanity to Its fearful kind?

"You do not believe me, " her voice came quietly across my thoughts. 

"I believe you, of course, " I stammered. "I was only--astonished. Youhave described It, and the Barrier, so often; from the first night----!I supposed you had seen all I have, and more. "

"All you have seen? Now tell me with what eyes you have seen the Barrierand the Far Frontier? The eyes of the body, or that vision by which mansees in a dream and which is to the sight as the speech of spirits is tothe hearing?"

"I suppose--with the inner sight. "

"Then understand me when I say that I have seen with the eyes ofanother, by a sight not mine and yet my own. "

"You mean, " I floundered in vague doubts and jealousy of her humanassociations of which I knew nothing. "You mean--hypnotism?"

She laughed with half-sad raillery. 

"How shall I answer you, Roger? Once upon a time, the jewel called berylwas thought unrivaled as a mirror into which a magician might look tosee reflected events taking place at a distance, or reflections of thefuture. But by and by magicians grew wiser. They found any crystal wouldserve as well as a beryl. Later still, they found a little water pouredin a basin or held in the hollow of the hand showed as true a fantasm. So one wrote: '_There is neither crystallomancy nor hydromancy, but themagick is in the Seer himself. _'"

"Well, Desire?"

"Well, Roger--if to see with the sight of another is hypnotism, thenevery man who writes a book or tells a good tale is a hypnotist; everyhistorian who makes us see the past is a necromancer. "

"You read of the Thing----?"

"No, " she replied, after a long pause. "I knew It through sympathy withone who died as I would not have you to die, my friend Roger, of whom Ishall think long in that place to which I go presently. Question me nomore. When the time comes for you to throw a certain braid of hair and apomander into the fire----"

"I will never do that!"

"No? Well, you might keep the pomander, which is pure gold engraved withancient signs and the name of the Shining Dawn, Dahana, in Sanskritcharacters. Also the perfume it contains is precious, being blent withthe herb vervain which is powerful against evil spirits. "

"It is not the pomander that I should keep, nor the pomander that holdsthe powerful spell. "

"You--value the braid so much?"

"I value only one other beauty as highly. "

"Yes, Roger?"

"Yes, Desire. And that beauty is she who wore the braid. "

Now the darkness in the room was dense. Yet I thought I sensed amovement toward me as airy as the flutter of a bird's wing. Thefragrance in the atmosphere eddied as if stirred by her passing. Butwhen I spoke to her again, after a moment's waiting, she had gone. 

I am sure no housekeeper was ever more nice in her ideas of neatnessthan my little Cousin Phillida, and no maid more exact in carrying outorders than Cristina. Nevertheless, automobiles pass on the quietestroads, and my windows are always wide open. There is the fireplace, too, with possibilities of soot. Anyhow, there was a light gray dustoverlaying the writing-table on the following morning. And in the dustwas a print as if a small hand had rested there, a yard from my chair. 

A slim hand it must have been. I judged the palm had been daintilycupped, the fingers slender, smooth and long in proportion to the absurdsize of the whole affair. My hand covered it without brushing anoutline. 

I could not put this souvenir away with the braid and the pomander. ButI could put its evidence with their witness of Desire Michell's reality. 

CHAPTER XIII

 "For may not the divell send to their fantasie, their senses being dulled and as it were asleep, such hills and glistering courts whereunto he pleaseth to delude them?"--KING JAMES' "DEMONOLOGY. "

Now I have to record how I walked into the oldest snare in the world. 

Perhaps it was the sense of her near presence brought home to me by herhand-print on the table so close to where my hand rested; perhaps it washer speech of presently leaving me to return no more. Or perhaps boththese joined in urging on my determination to learn more of DesireMichell before some unknown bar fell between us. I only know that Ipassed into a mood of trapped exasperation at my helplessness and lackof knowledge. It seemed imperative that I should act to save us both, act soon and surely; yet inaction was bound upon me by my ignorance. Whowas she? Where did she live? What bond held her subject to the Thingfrom the Barrier? What gates were to close between us? Why could she notput her hand in mine, any night, and let me take her away from thishaunted place? Why, at least, not come to me in the light, and let mesee her face to face? I was a man groping in a labyrinth while outsidesomething precious to him is being stolen. 

For the first time I found myself unable to work, unable to share ourhousehold life with Phillida and Vere, or to find relaxation in drivingabout the countryside. Anger against Desire herself stirred at thebottom of my mind; Desire, who hampered me by the word of honor in whichshe had netted me so securely. 

It was then that my enemy from the unknown places began to whisper ofthe book. 

I encountered that enemy in a new mood. We did not meet at the breach inthe mighty wall, confronted in death conflict between Its will and mine. Instead, night after night It crept to my window as at our firstmeeting. I started awake to find Its awful presence blackening thestarlight where It crouched opposite me, Its intelligence breathingagainst mine. As always, my human organism shrank from Its unhumanneighborhood. Chill and repugnance shook my body, while that part of mewhich was not body battled against nightmare paralysis of horror. Butnow It did not menace or strive against me. It displayed a dreadfulsuavity I might liken to the coiling and uncoiling of those great snakeswho are reported to mesmerize their prey by looping movements andfigures melting from change to change in the Hunger Dance of Kaa. 

There was a book that held all I longed to know, It whispered to me. Abook telling of the woman! She did not wish me to read, for fear Ishould grow overwise and make her mine. The book was here, in my house. I might arise and find--if I would be guided by It----!

I thrust the whispers away. How could I trust my enemy? If such a bookexisted, which seemed improbable, there was a taint of disloyalty toDesire in the thought of reading without her knowledge. 

The Thing was not turned away. How could I do harm by learning what shewas, unless she had evil to conceal? Did I fear to know the truth? Asfor the book's existence, I had only to accept guidance from It----?

I persisted in refusal. But the idea of the book followed me through mydays like a wizard's familiar dogging me. Where could such a volume behidden, in what secret nook in wall or floor? How came a book to bewritten about the girl I supposed young, unknown and set apart from theworld? Was I letting slip an opportunity by my fastidious notions ofdelicacy?

Indecision and curiosity tormented me beyond rest. Phillida and Verebegan to consider me with puzzled eyes. Cristina developed a habit ofcooking individual dishes of especial succulence and triumphantlysetting them before me as a "surprise"; a kindness which of courseobliged me to eat whether I was hungry or not. I suspect my littlecousin abetted her in this transparent ruse. I pleaded the heat as anexcuse for all. We were in late August now. Cicadas sang their dry chantin the fields, where the sun glared down upon Vere's crops and paintedhim the fine bronze of an Indian. Our lake scarcely stirred under thehot, still air. 

It was after a day of such heat, succeeded by a night hardly more cool, that the lights in my room quietly went out. I was sitting at my table, some letters which required answers spread before me while I brooded, pen between my fingers, upon the mystery which had become my life. Forthe moment I attributed the sudden failure of light to some accident atthe powerhouse. 

Not for long! The hateful cold that crept like freezing vapor into theroom, the foul air of damp and corruption pouring into the scentedcountry atmosphere, the frantic revolt of body and nerves--before Iturned my eyes to the window I knew the monster from the Frontiercrouched there. 

"Weakling!" It taunted me. "Puny from of old, how should you prevail? Byyour fear, the woman stays mine. Miserable earth-crawler, in whose handthe weapon was laid and who shrinking let it fall unused, the endcomes. "

"The book?" I gasped, against my better judgment. 

"The book was the weapon. "

"No, or you would not have offered it to me. "

"Coward, believe so. Hug the belief while you may. The offer is past. "

Past? A madness of bafflement and frustrated curiosity gripped and shookme. 

"I take the offer, " I cried in passion and defiance. "If there is such abook, show it to me!"

The Thing was gone. Light quietly filled the lamps--or was it that I hadopened my eyes? I gripped the arms of my chair, waiting. For what? I didnot know. Only, all the horror I ever had felt in the presence of theThing was slight compared to the fear that presently began to flow uponme as an icy current. There in the pleasantly lighted room, alone, Isank through depths of dread, down into an abyss of despair, down----

A long sigh of rising wind passed through the house like a sucked breathof triumph. Windows and doors drew in and out against their frames witha rattling crash, then hung still with unnatural abruptness. Absolutestillness succeeded. I felt a very slight shock, as if the ground at myfeet was struck. 

I fled from the terror for the first time. Yes, coward at last, deserterfrom that unseen Frontier's defense, I found myself in the hall outsidemy room, leaning sick and faint against the wall. Behind me the doorshut violently, yet I felt no current of air to move it. 

From the other side of the house there sounded the click of latch, thena patter of soft-shod feet. Phillida came hurrying down the hall towardme. She was wrapped in some silky pink-flowered garment. Her short hairstood out around her head like a little girl's well-brushed crop. Shepresented as endearingly natural a figure, I thought, as any man couldseek or imagine. The wisdom of Ethan Vere who had garnered his lovehere!

"Cousin?" she exclaimed. "The hall light is so dim! You almostfrightened me when I glimpsed you standing there. Did the wind wake you, too? I think we are going to have a thunder storm, it is so hot andgusty. I heard poor Bagheera mewing and scratching at the door, so I wasjust going down to let him in before the rain comes. "

"Yes, " I achieved. Then, finding my voice secure: "I will let in thecat. Where is Vere?"

"He did not wake up, so I tiptoed out. Why?"

"I do not like to have you going about the house alone at this hour. "

Her eyes widened and she laughed outright. 

"Why, Cousin Roger! What a funny idea to have about our very own house!I have one of the electric flashlights you bought for us all; see?"

What could I tell her of my vision of her womanly softness and timiditybrought to bay by the Thing of horror, down in those empty lower rooms?How did I know It stalked no prey but me? Its clutch was upon DesireMichell. These were Its hours, between midnight and dawn. 

"Tramps, " I explained evasively. "Give me the light. "

But she pattered down the stairs beside me, kimono lifted well above herpink-flowered slippers, one hand on the balustrade. The light glinted inthe white topaz that guarded her wedding ring, a richer jewel than anydiamond in the sight of one who knew the tender thought with which shehad set it there. No! The horror was not for her, clothed in herwholesome goodness as in armor of proof. Surely for such as she theBarrier stood unbreached and strong. 

When I opened the front door, Bagheera darted in like a hunted cat. Adrift of mist entered with him. Looking out, I saw the night was heavywith a low-hanging fog that scarcely rose to the tree tops; aground-mist that eddied in smoke-like waves of gray where our light fellupon it. Such mists were common here, yet I shivered and shut it outwith relief. While I refastened the lock, Bagheera purred around myankles, pressing caressingly against me as if thanking me after themanner of cats. I remembered this was not the first time he had shownthis anxiety and gratitude for shelter. 

"Bagheera does love you, " Phillida commented, stooping to pat him. "Isn't it funny, though, that he never will go into your room? He isalways petting around you downstairs. When Cristina or I are doing upyour quarters, he will follow us right up to the door-sill, but we can'tcoax him inside. Perhaps he doesn't like that perfume you always haveabout. "

A qualm ran through me, recalling the night I had taken the cat there byforce and its frantic escape. But I snapped the key fast andstraightened myself with sharp self-contempt. Had I fallen so low as toheed the caprices of a pet cat? Was it not enough that I had fled frommy enemy after accepting the knowledge It had striven so long to forceupon me?

For I had that knowledge. When I had halted in the passage outside myroom, in the moment before Phillida had joined me, there had beensquarely set before my mental sight the place to seek the book. 

"Phillida, there was a bookcase in this house when it was bought, " Isaid. "I believe it stood in my room before the place was altered. Asmall stand; I remember putting my candle on its top the first night Islept here. Have you seen it?"

Some tone in my question seemed to touch her expression with surprise asshe lifted her eyes to mine; or perhaps it was the hour I chose for theinquiry. 

"Oh, yes, " she answered readily. "I supposed you had noticed it longago; I mean, where it stands. The quaintest bit, a genuine antique! Andholding the stuffiest collection of old books, too! I believe they maybe valuable, out-of-print, early editions. If, " her voice falteredwistfully, "if Father ever forgives me for being happy with Ethan, andcomes to visit us, he would love every musty old volume. Do you thinkMother and he ever will, Cousin Roger?"

"I am sure they will, Phil. Feuds and tragic parents are out of date. They must adjust themselves gradually when they realize Vereis--himself. Before you go upstairs to him, will you tell me where tofind that bookcase?"

"Now? Why, of course!"

She led me across the hall to her sewing room. I cannot say that shesewed there very much, but she had chosen that title in preference toboudoir or study as more becoming a housewife. She had assembled here aspinning-wheel from the attic, some samplers, a Hepplewhite sewing-tableand chairs discovered about the house. Her canaries' cage hung above agreat punch-bowl of flowered ware in which she kept gold-fish. A pipe ofVere's balanced beside the bowl showed that his masculine presence wasnot excluded. 

In a corner stood the bookcase. Phillida pulled the chain of a lampbright under a shade of peacock chintz, and watched me stoop to look atthe faded bindings. 

"Thank you, Phil, " I said. "It may take some time to find the book Iwant. You had better hurry back to bed before Vere comes hunting for amissing wife. "

"Are you going to stay and hunt for the book tonight, then?"

"Unless you are afraid I shall disturb your canaries?"

She did not laugh. Drawing nearer, she stroked my sleeve with acaressing doubt and remonstrance. 

"But you have not been to bed at all, and soon it will be morning! Doyou have to write your lovely music at night, Cousin Roger? You havebeen growing thin and tired, this summer. Are you quite well? You are sogood that you should be happy, but--are you?"

"Good, Phil?" I wondered, touched. "Why, how did your lazy, tune-spinning, frivolous cousin get that reputation in this branch ofthe family?"

"You are so kind, " she said simply. "Ethan says so. You know, CousinRoger, that I was over-educated in my childhood; my brain choked withlittle, little stupid knowledge that hardly matters at all. We went tochurch Sundays because that was the correct thing to do. But I wasalmost a heathen when Ethan married me. He doesn't trouble about church. He doesn't trouble about the past, or life after death, or punishmentfor sin. He believes if one tries to be kind and straight, the bigKindness and Straightness takes care of everything. So I have learned tofeel that way, too. It is a--a calm sort of feeling all the time, if youknow what I mean. And that is the way you are good, although perhaps younever thought of it. "

"Thank you, Phillida, " I acknowledged; and walked with her to the footof the stairs. 

When her pink-clad figure had vanished behind her bedroom door, I wentback to the sewing room and drew up a chair before the case of books. 

Phillida had not unreasonably stigmatized them as stuffy. They were asober collection. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy, " an ancient copy ofthe Apocrypha, and a three-volume Life of Martin Luther loaded the firstshelf. I looked at the second shelf and found it filled with the boundsermons of a divine of whom I had never heard. 

The lowest shelf held strange companions for the sedate volumes above. Erudite works on theosophy, magic, the interpretation of dreams anddemonology huddled together here. Not all of them were readable by myhumble store of learning. There was a Latin copy of Artemidorus, Mesmer's "Shepherd, " Mathew Paris, some volumes in Greek, and some Ijudged to be Arabian and Hebrew. At the end of the row stood a thin, dingy book whose title had passed out of legibility. I took it out andopened the covers. 

Fronting the first page was a faded woodcut, the portrait of a woman. Beneath in old long-s type, dim on the yellowed paper, was printed thelegend:

"_Desire Michell, ye foule witch. _"

Closing the book, I forced reason to come forward. I was resolved thatpanic should not drive me again nor my defense fall from within itswalls. Master of my enemy I might never be; master of my own innerkingdom I must and should be. But I was glad to be here instead ofupstairs while I read; glad of the interlude in Phillida's company, andof the presence of the three sleepy canaries who blinked down at thedisturbing lamp. 

The date stamped into the back of the book in Roman numerals was of ayear in the seventeen hundreds. What connection could its Desire Michellhave with the girl I knew? Perhaps she had adopted the name to mystifyme. Or at most, she might be of the family of that unfortunate womanbranded witch by a bigoted generation. 

Reopening the book, I studied the dim, stiff portrait. The face wasyoung, delicate of line, with long eyes set wide apart; eyes that evenin this wretched picture kept a curious drowsy watchfulness. Theinevitable white Puritan cap was worn, but curls clustered about thebrow and two massive braids descended over either shoulder. The perfumedbronze-colored braid up in my drawer----?

The volume was entitled "Some Manifestations of Satan in Witchcraft inYe Colonies, " by Abimelech Fetherstone. Disregarding the satanicmanifestations set forth in the other four chronicles, I turned to "YeFoule Witch, Desire Michell. "

As I began to read, another breath of wind sighed through the house, sucking windows and doors in and out with the shock of sound, instantlyended, that is produced by a distant explosion. I thought a flash oflightning whipped across my eyes. But when I glanced toward the windowsI saw only the smoke-like fog banked in drifts against the panes. 

CHAPTER XIV

 "Beauty is a witch--" --MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. 

I will tear the core out of many yellow pages of diffuse writing spicedwith smug moral reflections. 

Desire Michell had been no traditional old hag, hideous and malevolent;no pallid, raving epileptic to accuse herself in shrieking tales ofBlack Men, and Sabbats, and harm done to neighbors' cattle or crops. Herfather was a clergyman who brought his goods and his motherless daughterfrom England to the Colonies, and settled in "ye Pequot Marsh country. "There he found a congregation, and they lived much respected. Theirculture appeared to be far beyond that of their few, hard-workingneighbors. Young Mistress Michell was reputed learned in the use ofsimples, among other arts, and to have been "of a beauty exceeding thecustom among godly women, to so great degree that sorcery should havebeen suspected of her. "

However, sorcery was not suspected; not even when her fame spread amongnear-dwelling Indian tribes who gave her a name signifying _Water onwhich the Sun is Shining_. Admiration was her portion, then, with allthe suitors the vicinity held. But from fastidiousness or ambition sherefused every proposal made to her father for her. She walked aloof andalone, until another sort of wooer came to the gate of the minister'shouse. 

This man's full name was not given, apparently through the writer'scautious respect for place and influence. He was vaguely described asgoodly in appearance, of high family, but not abundantly supplied withriches. However he chanced to come to the obscure settlement was notstated. He did come, saw Desire Michell, and fell as abjectly prostratebefore her as any youth who never had left the village. 

He pressed his courtship hard and eagerly. At first he was welcome atthe minister's house. But a day came when Master Michell forbade him tocross that door and rumor whispered, scandalized, that Sir Austin's suithad not been honorable to the maid. 

Sir Austin sulked a week at the village inn. Then he broke under thetorment of not seeing Desire Michell. Their betrothal was made public, and he rode away to prepare his home for their marriage in the spring. 

Travel was slow in the winter, news trickled slowly across snowbounddistances. With spring came no bridegroom; instead word arrived of hisaffair with an heiress recently come to New York from England. She wasrich in gold and grants of land from the Crown. Her husband would be aman of weight and influence, it seemed. 

Sir Austin had married her. 

Desire Michell shut herself in her father's house. The clergyman did notlive many months after the humiliation. Alone, the girl lived. "Student, " wrote Abimelech Fetherstone, "of black and bitter arts. Or assome say, having, like Bombastus de Hohenheim, a devil's bird enchainedto do her will. "

In his distant home, Sir Austin sickened. He burned with fever, anguishconsumed him. Physicians were called to the bedside of the rich man. They could not diagnose his ailment or help him. He screamed for water. When it was brought, his throat locked and he could not swallow. Heraved of Desire Michell, beseeching her mercy. In his times of sanity, he begged and commanded his wife and servants to send for the girl. Inher pardon he saw his sole hope of life. 

Finally, he was obeyed. Messengers were sent to the village. They werenot even admitted to the house they sought, or to sight of MistressMichell. 

"Your master came himself to woo; let him come himself to plead. "

That was the answer they received to carry back to the sick man. 

Sir Austin heard, and submitted with trembling hope. Writhing in theanguish wasting him by day and night, he made the journey by coach andlitter to Desire Michell's house. At her door-sill he implored entranceand pity. The door did not open. 

It never opened for him. For three days in succession he was borne toher threshold, calling on her in his pain and fear. His servants andphysician clustered about staring at the house which stood locked andblank of response. At night fire-shine was seen from an upper room; somedeclared they heard wild, melodious laughter. 

On the third day Sir Austin died. A stern-faced deputation of men wentto the house of the late clergymen. They found the door unlatched andopen to their entrance. In the upper room they found Mistress Michellseated before her hearth where a dying fire fell to embers, her hair"flowing down in grate bewty. "

"What have I to do with Sir Austin, or he with me?" she calmly asked themen who gaped upon her. "How should I have harmed him, who came not nearhim, as ye know? Bury him, and leave me in peace. "

If she had been aged and ugly, she might have been hung. Gossip ran rifethrough the countryside. But indignation was strong against the man whohad jilted the local beauty, there existed no proof of harm done, andthe matter slept for a time. 

New matters came. A horror grew up around the house. The girl was seenflitting across the fields at dawn, a monstrous shadow following. Hervoice was heard from the room where she locked herself alone, raised inunknown speech. Strange lights moved in her windows in the deep night. The old woman who had served in the house for years was stricken with apalsy and was taken away mumbling unintelligible things that iced theblood of superstitious hearers. 

There was a young man of the neighborhood whose love for MistressMichell had been long and constant. One morning he was found dead on herdoorstep, his face fixed in drawn terror. Under his hand four words werescrawled in the snow: "_Sara daughter of Ruel----_"

There were those who could finish that quotation. Next Sabbath the newminister took as his text: "Ye shall not suffer a witch to live. " And hespoke of Sara the daughter of Ruel, who was wed to ten bridegrooms, eachof whom was dead on the wedding eve; for she was beloved by an evilspirit that suffered none to come to her. Authority moved at lastagainst Desire Michell. But when the officers came to arrest her, shewas found dead in her favorite seat before the hearth. 

"Fair and upright in her place, scented with a perfume she herselfdistilled of her learning in such matters; which was said to contain arare herb of Jerusalem called Lady's Rose, resembling spikenard, withvervain and cedar and secret simples; in which she steeped her hair sothat wherever she abode were sweet odours. So did she escape Justice, but shall not escape Hell's Damnation and Heaven's casting out. "

I closed the book and laid it down. 

Reading those dim, closely printed pages had taken time. I wasastonished to find the window spaces gray with dawn, when I glanced thatway. The night was past. Neither from Desire nor from the Thing withouta name which had sent me to this book could I find out what I wasexpected to glean from the narration. 

My enemy had made no conditions on directing me to the book. It hadasked no price, uttered no menace. Why, then, had I so solemn acertainty that a crisis in our affair had been reached. I had come to anend; a corner had been turned. I had opened a door that could not beclosed. How did I know this? Why?

Why was the fog against the windows this morning so like the fog thatshrouded the unearthly sea opposite the Barrier?

By and by Cristina came downstairs and busied herself in the kitchen. Bagheera, who had slept beside my chair all night, rose and padded outto the region of breakfast and saucers of milk. Next, the voices ofPhillida and Vere drifted from above. 

To have Phillida find me there in her sewing-room, finishing anall-night vigil, involved too many explanations. I did an unwise thing. From the lowest shelf of the bookcase I gathered such books as werereadable by my knowledge, and carried the armful up to my room. After ahot bath and breakfast I would look over these companions of the NewEngland witch book. 

CHAPTER XV

 "Not a drop of her blood was human, But she was made like a soft sweet woman. " --LILITH. 

The fog stayed all day. The mist was so dense that it gave the effect ofa solid mass enclosing the house. No wind stirred it, no cheering beamof sun pierced it. Through it sounds reached the ear distorted andmagnified. All day I sat in my room reading. 

There are books which should not be preserved. I, who am a lover ofbooks, who detest any form of censorship, I do seriously set down mybelief that there exist chronicles which would be better destroyed. Withthis few people will agree. My answer to them is simple: they have notread the books I mean. 

Not all the volumes from the old bookcase were of that character, ofcourse. Nearly all of them were well known to classical students, atleast by name. Obscure, fantastic, cast aside by the world they were, but harmless to a fairly steady head. But there were two that clung tothe mind like pitch. I have no intention of giving their titles. 

Ugly and sullen, early night closed in when I was in a mood akin to it. Dinner with Phillida and Vere was an ordeal hurried through. We were outof touch. I felt remote from them; fenced apart by a heavy sense ofguilt and defilement left by those hateful books, most incongruouslyblended with contempt for my companions' childish light-heartedness. Assoon as possible, I left them. 

Alone in my room, in my chair behind the writing-table again, I pushedaside the pile of books and sank into sombre thought. What should I sayto Desire Michell if she came tonight?

Who was she, who was claimed by the Unspeakable and who did not deny Itsclaim? Was I confronted with two beings from places unknown to normalhumanity? If she was the woman that she had seemed to be throughout ourintercourse, how could the dark enemy control her? Even I, a common manwith full measure of mankind's common faults and weaknesses, could holdIts clutch from me by right of the law that protects each in his place. 

Was she one of those who have stepped from the permitted places?

"_Sara the daughter of Ruel--who was beloved by an evil spirit whosuffered none to come to her_. "

"_There was a young gentlewoman of excellent beauty, daughter of anobleman of Mar, who loved a foule monstrous thing verie horrible tobehold, and for it refused rich marriages.... Until the Gospel of St. John being said suddenlie the wicked spirit flue his waies with sorenoise_. "

I put out my hand and thrust the pile of books aside from my directsight. But I could not so easily thrust from my mind the thoughts thesebooks had implanted. I could not forget that Desire Michell herself hadalleged jealousy as the Thing's reason for attacking me. 

What if we came to an explanation tonight and ended this long delirium?Was it not time? Had not my weeks of endurance earned me this right?Resolution mounted in me, defiant and strong. 

The evening had passed to an hour when I might look for the girl tocome. I switched off the lights, and sat down to keep our nightly tryst. 

In the darkness of the haunted room, the thoughts I would have held atbay rushed upon me as clamorous besiegers. 

Desire! Desire of the world! Desire of mine and of the unhuman Thing, did we grasp at Eve or Lilith? At the fire on the hearth or the coldphosphorescence of swamp and marsh?

A drift of fragrance was afloat on the air. A delicate stir of movementpassed by me. I raised my head from my hands, expectant. 

"I am here, " her familiar voice told me. 

"Desire, you had to come, tonight. "

Some quality in my voice carried to her a message beyond the words. Butshe did not break into exclamation or question as another woman might. She was mute, as one who stands still to find the path before taking astep. 

"You are angry, " she said at last. "Something here has gone badly foryou; I knew that before I entered this room. "

"How can you say that?" I challenged. "If you are like other men andwomen, how can you know what happens when you are absent? How do youknow what passes between the Thing from the Frontier and me?"

"I do not know unless you tell me, Roger. If I feel from afar when youare in sorrow, why, so do many people feel with another in sympathy. "

"You feel more than ordinary sympathy can, " I retorted. 

"Then, perhaps it is not an ordinary sympathy I have for you, Roger. "

Her very gentleness struck wrong on my perverted mood. Was she trying toturn me from my purpose with her soft speech? She had never granted meanything so near an admission of love until now. 

"It is not an ordinary trial that I have borne for these meagre meetingswhere I do not see your face or touch your hand, " I answered. "But thatmust end. Put your hand in mine, Desire, and come with me. Let us go outof this room where shadows make our thoughts sickly. You shall stay withmy cousin. Or if you choose, we will go straight to New York or Boston. I am asking you to be my wife. Let us have done with phantoms andspectres. I love you. "

"No, " she whispered. "You do not love me tonight. Tonight you distrustme. Why?"

"Is it distrusting you to ask you to marry me?"

"Not this way would you have asked that of me when I last came! But Iwill answer you more honestly than you do me. To go with you would bethe greatest happiness the world could give. To think of it dazzles theheart. But it is not for me. Have you forgotten, Roger, that my life isnot mine? That I am a prisoner who has crept out for a little while? Thegates soon close, now, upon me. "

"What gates?" I demanded. 

"Sacrifice and expiation. "

"Expiation of what?" I exclaimed, exasperated. "Desire, I have read thebook of Desire Michell, downstairs. "

I heard her gasp and shrink in the darkness. Silence bound us both. Inthe hush, it seemed to me that the house suddenly trembled as it haddone the night before, a slight shock as from some distant explosion. Inmy intentness upon the woman opposite me the tremor passed unheeded. Shemust answer me now, surely! Now----

She spoke with a breathless difficulty, spacing her words apart:

"How did you--find--the book?"

"It told me--the Thing from out there, " I admitted, sullenly defiant ofher opinion. 

She cried out sharply. 

"You? You took Its gift? You did that fatal madness--and you are here?Oh, you are lost, and the guilt mine! Yet I warned you that dangerflowed from knowing me. You accepted the risk and the sorrow--yet youhave thrown down all for a bribe of knowledge. Do you not know what itmeans to take a gift from the Dark Ones of the Borderland? To brave theLoathesome Eyes so long--and fall this way at last! Yet--there may be ahope--since you still live. But go. Not tomorrow, not at dawn, but gonow. By all that man can dread for soul or body, go now. "

"Not without you. "

"Me? Oh, how can I make you understand! I shall never come here again. Take with you my gratitude for our hours together, my prayers for allthe years to come. There is no blame to you because you could not trusta woman on whom falls the shadow of the awful Watcher that stalks behindme. I make no reproach--if only you will go. Do not linger. I do mostsolemnly warn you not to stay alone in this room one moment after I havegone. "

"Desire!" I exclaimed. "Wait. Forgive me. I trust you. I did not meanwhat you believe. Do not leave me this way. Desire----"

I can say honestly that my next action was without intention. On mytable lay, as usual, a small electric torch. Every member of ourhousehold was provided with one for use in emergencies likely to occurin a country house, the time of candles being past. Now, rising inagitation and repentance, my hand pressed by chance upon theflashlight's button. A beam of light poured across the darkness. 

What did I see, starting out of the black gloom? A spirit or a woman?Were those a woman's draperies or part of the night fog that showed mereswirl upon swirl of pale gray twisting in the path of light? I glimpseda face colorless as pearl, the shine of eyes dark and almond shaped, then a drifting mass of gray smoke, all intermingled with glitteringgold flashes, seemed to close between us. The whole apparition sank downout of vision, as aghast, I lifted my hand and the torch went out. 

Shaken out of all ability to speak, I stood in my place. Did I hear amovement, or only a stirring of the orchard trees beyond the windows?

"Desire?" I ventured, my voice hoarse to my ears. 

No answer. I felt myself alone. 

I would not at once turn on the lamps. My haste might seem an attempt tobreak faith with her a second time. I sat down again, folding my armsupon the table and resting my forehead upon them. 

Well, I had seen her at last--but how? A wan loveliness seeminglypainted upon the canvas of the dark by a brush dipped in moonlight. Awhite moth caught fluttering in the ray of the torch. Seen at theinstant of her leaving me forever; insulted by my suspicions, my lovehurled coarsely at her like a command, my promise of security for hervisits apparently broken. How dared I even hope for her return?

Now I knew why my enemy had guided me to those books, that I might read, fill my mind with the poison of vile thoughts, and destroy thecomradeship that bound me to Desire Michell. How should I find her? Howfree us both?

The clock in the hall downstairs struck a single bell. With dullsurprise I realized that considerable time had passed while I sat there. Still I did not move, weighed down by a profound discouragement. 

Suddenly, as a wave will run up a beach in advance of the incoming tide, impelled by some deep stir in the ocean's secret places, an icy surgerushed about my feet. Deathly cold from that current struck through mywhole body. My heart shuddered and staggered in its beating from pureshock. 

"_Go! Not tomorrow, not at dawn, but now!_"

The wave seeped back, receded away from me down its invisible beach. Desire's warning hammered at my mind, striving to burst some barred doorto reach the consciousness within that had loitered too long. This wasthe new peril. This was what I had fled from, unknowing the source of mypanic, the night before. 

This was death. 

A second surge struck me with the heavy shock of a veritable wave fromsome bitter ocean. This time the tide rose to my knees; boiling andhissing in its rush. Blood and nerves seemed to freeze. I felt my heartstop, then reel on like a broken thing. Flecks of crimson spattered likefoam against my eyelids. 

The wave broke. The mass poured down the beach, tugging at me in itsretreat. With the last strength ebbing away from me with that recedingcurrent, I dragged the chain of the lamp beside me. 

The comfort of light springing up in the room! The relief of seeingnormal, pleasant surroundings! Truly light is an elixir of courage toman. 

That cold had paralyzed me. I had no force to rise. Nor did I altogetherwish to rise and go. I had lost Desire tonight. Was I to lose myself-respect also? Was I to run a beaten man from this peril, afterstanding against my enemy so long?

Should I not rather stand on this my ground where I was not the "lamefeller"?

Down by the lake, the snarling cry of a terrified cat broke the nightstillness. It was Bagheera's voice. The cry was followed by soundsindicating a small animal's frantic flight through the thickets ofgoldenrod and willow that edged the banks of the stream below the dam. The series of progressive crashes passed back of the house and continuedon, dying away down the creek. 

As I braced my startled nerves after this outbreak of noise, the lightwas withdrawn from every lamp in the room. At the same moment, theelectric torch rolled off my table and fell to the floor. I heard itsprogress across the muffling softness of the rug, across the polishedwood beyond, and final stoppage at some point out of my reach. 

As vapor rises from some unseen source and forms in vague growing masswithin the curdled air, so blackening dark the hideous bulk rearedItself in the night and stared in upon me. As so many times, I felt theEyes I could not see; the pressure of a colossal hate loomed over me, poised to crush, yet withheld by a force greater than either of us. Thevenom of Its malevolence flowed into the atmosphere about me, foulingthe breath I drew. My lungs labored. 

"Pygmy, " Its intelligence thrust against mine. "Frail and presumptuousWill that has dared oppose mine, you are conquered. This is the hourforetold to you, the hour of your weakness and my strength. Weakling, feel the death surf break upon you. Fall down before me. Cower--plead!"

Now indeed I felt a sickness of self-doubt, for the wash of theinvisible sea never had come to me until tonight. And there was Desire'ssaying that I had destroyed myself by accepting the Thing's gift ofknowledge of the book. But I summoned my forces. 

"Never, " my thought refused It. "Have we not met front to front thesemany nights? And who has drawn back, Breaker of the Law? You return, butI live. The duel is not lost. "

"It is lost, Man, and to me. Have you not taken my gift that you mightspy meanly on the secret of your beloved? Have you not opened your mindto the evil thoughts that creep upon the citadel of strength within andtear down its power? Of your own deed, you are mine. My breath drinksyour breath. Your life falls down as a lamp that is thrown from itspedestal. Your spirit rises from its seat and looks toward those spaceswhere it shall take flight tonight. Man, you die. "

Again the surge and shock of that frigid sea rushed upon me. I felt theswirl and hiss of the broken wave higher about me before it sank awaydown whatever dreadful strand it owned. My life ebbed with it, draininglow. My enemy spoke the truth. One more such wave----

My imagination sprang ahead of the event. In fancy, I saw bright dawnfilling this room of mine, shining on the figure of a man who had beenmyself. His head rested on his folded arms so that his face was hidden. On the table beside him a vase was overturned; a spray of heliotrope laynear and water had trickled over scattered sheets of music, staining thepaper. By and by Vere would come to summon that unanswering figure tothe gay little breakfast-table. Phillida would leave her place behindthe burnished copper percolator she prized so highly and come running upthe stairs. In her gentleness she would grieve, no doubt. I was sorryfor that. But it was a contentment and pleasure for me to recall that Ihad settled my financial affairs so that my little cousin would neverlack money or know any care that I could spare her. Strange, how she hadbeen rated below more beautiful or more clever women until the waifEthan Vere had set her dearness in full sun for us to wonder at!

"Pygmy, will you think of another pygmy now?" raged the Thing. "Yourself! Think of yourself! Crouch! Think of death, corruption, thevileness of the grave. Think how you are of the grave. Think how you arealone with me. Think how you are abandoned to me. "

But with that tenderness for Phillida a warmth had flowed through melike strength. 

"Not so, " my defiance answered It. "For where I am, I stand by my ownwill. With where I shall stand, you have nothing to do. Back, then, forwith the death of my body your power ends. Back--or else face me, Thingof Darkness, while we stand in one place. "

At this mad challenge of mine silence closed down like a shutting trap. Consciousness sank away from me with a sense of swooning quietness. 

 * * * * *

I stood before the Barrier on the ghostly frontier; erect, arms folded, fronting the Breach in that inconceivably mighty wall. Above, away outof vision on either hand stretched the gray glimmering cliffs. 

This I had seen before. But behind me lay that which I had not seen. Themists I believed to be eternal had lifted. Naked, a vast gray seastretched parallel with the Barrier; like it, without end or even ahorizon to bound its enormous desolation. Between these two immensitieson the narrow strand at the foot of the wall, I stood, pygmy indeed. Inthe Breach, as of old, the Thing whose home was there reared Itselfagainst me. 

"Man, " It spat, "would you see me? Would you see the Eyes once seen bythe witch-woman, who fell blasted out of human ken? Creature of clay, crumbling now in the sea of mortality, do you brave my immemorial age?"

It reared up, up, a towering formlessness. It stooped, a loweringmenace. 

"Man, whenever man has summoned Evil since the youngest days of theworld have I not answered? Have I not brought my presence to themagician's lamp? Have I not shadowed the alchemist at his crucible? Whenthe woman called upon me with ancient knowledge, did I not come. I amthe guardian of the Barrier. Whoever would pass this way must pass me. Have you the power? Die, then, and begone. "

With a long heaving sound of waters in movement, the gray sea stirredfrom its stillness. As if drawn to some center out of sight, the tidebegan to recede down that strange beach. Then realization came to methat here was the ocean which, invisible, had surged icy death upon me awhile past. The ocean now gathered for the final wave that shouldoverwhelm the defeated. 

"Braggart!" my thought answered the taunt. "If the witch-woman wasyours, the girl Desire is mine. This I know: as little as man has to dowith you, so little have you to do with the human and the good. Livingor dead, our path is not yours. I did not summon you. I do dare lookupon you, if you have visible form. "

Now in the hush a sound that I had faintly heard as a continuing thingseemed to draw nearer. A sound of light, swift footsteps hurrying, hurrying; the steps of one in pitiful eagerness and haste. But I heededthis slightly. My gaze was upon that which took place within the cleftin the great wall. For there the cold darkness was writhing and turning, visible, yet obscure; as the rapids of a glassy, twisting river mightlook by night. And as one might glimpse beneath the smooth boil andheave of such a river the dim shape of crocodile or water-monster, so inthat moving dark there seemed to lie Something from which the mindshrank, appalled. Now gigantic tentacles rolled about a central mass, groping out in unsatisfied greed. Now an ape-like shape seemed to stalkthere, rearing up its monstrous stature until all that Breach was chokedwith it. It fell down into vagueness, where huge coils upraised and sanktheir loops. But through all change steadily fixed upon me I felt theeyes of the Unseen. 

I stood my ground. With what pain and draining cost to my poor endurancethere is no need to say. Each instant I anticipated the surge of thatreturning sea whose flood should smother out the human spark upon itsshore. This I had brought upon myself. Yes, and would again to helpDesire Michell! If I had sheltered her for one hour----!

The Thing halted, stooped. 

"Man, cast off the woman, " It snarled at me. "Fool, evil goes with her. For her you suffer. Thrust her from your breast. "

I looked down. Wavering against my breast, just above my heart glimmereda spot of light. The little hurrying steps had ceased. I thought, if thebright head of Desire Michell were rested there against me, how I wouldstrive to shield her from sight of the Thing yonder. In the sweep ofthat will to protect, I drew my coat about the spot of hoveringbrightness. 

I felt her press warm against me. I heard the roar of the death-wave farout in that sea. Before me----

Oh Horror of the Frontier, what broke through the dread Breach. Whatformed there, more inhuman from Its likeness to humanity? What Handreached for me--for--us----

CHAPTER XVI

 "I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. "--MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. 

"Mr. Locke! Mr. Locke!"

I opened heavy eyes to meet the eyes of Ethan Vere, who bent over me. Phillida was there, too, pale of face. But what was That just vanishinginto the darkness beyond my window-sill? What malignant glare seareddisappointment and grim promise across my consciousness? Had I broughtwith me or did I hear now a whispered: "_Pygmy, again!_"

"Cousin, Cousin, are you very ill?" Phillida was half sobbing. "Won'tyou drink the brandy, please? Oh, Ethan, how cold he is to touch!"

"Hush, dear, " Vere bade, in his slow steadfast way. "Mr. Locke, can youswallow some of this?"

I became aware that his arm supported me upright in my chair while heheld a glass to my lips. Mechanically I drank some of the cordial. Vereput down the glass and said a curious thing. He asked me:

"Shall I get you out of this room?"

Why should he ask that, since the spectre was for me alone? Or if he hadnot seen It, how did he know this room was an unsafe area? My stupefiedbrain puzzled over these questions while I managed a sign of refusal. Any effort was impossible to me. The cold of the unearthly sea stillnumbed my body. My heart labored, staggering at each beat. 

Vere's support and nearness were welcome to me. His tact let me rest inthe mute inaction necessary to recovery, while my body, astonished thatit still lived, hesitatingly resumed the task of life. Somehow hereassured and directed Phillida. Presently she was busied with thecoffee apparatus in the corner of the room. 

It was too much weariness even to turn my eyes aside from the expanse ofthe table before me. The vase was upset, I noted, as I had seemed to seeit. The spray of purple heliotrope Phillida had put there the day beforelay among the wet sheets of music. The Book of Hermas lay open at thepage I had last turned, the rosy lamplight upon the text. 

"_Behold, I saw a great Beast that he might devour a city--whose name isHegrin. Thou hast escaped--because thou didst not fear for so terrible aBeast. If, therefore, ye shall have prepared yourselves, yet mayescape----_"

What did they mean, the old, old words men have rejected? What hadHermas glimpsed in his visions? How many men are written down liarsbecause they traveled in strange lands indeed, and explorers, strove toreport what they had seen? Who before me had stood at the Barrier andset foot on the Frontier between the worlds?

The fog still dense outside was whitening with daybreak. A few hourswhile the sun ran its course once more for me, then night again, bringing completion of the menace. I recognized that this delay couldnot affect the end. Perhaps it would have been easier if all hadfinished for me tonight, easier if Vere and Phillida had not found me intime to bring me back. 

How had they found out my condition? Wonder stirred under my lethargy. Had I called or cried out? It did not seem that I could have done so. Certainly I had not tried! I was not quite so poor an adventurer asthat. 

Phillida was back with a cup of steaming black coffee, tiptoeing in heranxiety and questioning Vere with her eyes. He took the cup, stooping toreceive my glance of assent to the new medicine. 

The brandy had stimulated, but sickened me. The coffee revived me somuch that I was able to take the second cup without Vere's help. When Ihad walked up and down the room a few times, leaning on his arm, lifehad taken me back, if only for a little while. 

The two nurses were so good in their care of me that our first wordswere of my gratitude to them. Then my curiosity found voice. 

"How did you happen to come in at this hour?" I asked. "How did you knowI was--ill?"

"I cannot imagine what made Ethan wake up, " said Phillida, with apuzzled look toward her husband. "He woke me by rushing out of the roomand letting the door slam behind him. Of course I knew something must bewrong to make Drawls hurry like that. Usually he does such a tremendouslot in a day while looking positively lazy. So I came rushing after andfound him in here, trying to waken you. I--I thought at first that youwere not living, Cousin Roger. It was horrible! You were all white andcold----" she shivered. 

Vere poured another cup of coffee. He said nothing on the subject, merely observing that the stimulant would hardly hurt me and some mightbe good for Phil. I asked her to bring cups for them both. 

"I am not sure I really care about the coffee, but I'll make some more, "she nodded, dimpling. "I love to drink from your wee porcelain cups withtheir gold holders. You do have pretty things, you bachelors from town. "

When she was across the room, I asked quietly:

"What was it, Vere? What sent you to me?"

He answered in as subdued a tone, looking at the tinted shade of thelamp instead of at my face. 

"The young lady woke me, Mr. Locke. She came to the bedside, whisperingthat you were dying--would be dead if I didn't get to help you in time. She was gone before Phillida roused up so she doesn't know anythingabout it. "

My heart, so nearly stopped forever and so lethargic still, leaped in astrong beat. Desire, then, had come back to save me. For all my doubtand seemingly broken faith, she had brought her slight power to help mein my hour of danger. For my sake she had broken through her mysteriousseclusion to call Vere and send him to my rescue. 

Neither he nor I being unsophisticated, I understood what Vere believed, and why he looked at the lamp rather than at me. But even that matterhad to yield precedence to my first eagerness. 

"You saw her?" I demanded. "You call her young. You saw her face, then?"

"I could forget it if I had, " he said dryly. "As it happened, I didn't. She was wrapped in a lot of floating thin stuff; gray, I guess? The roomwas pretty dark, and I was jumping out of sleep. I don't know why sheseemed young unless it was the easy, light way she moved. By the time Igot what she was saying and sat up, she was gone. "

"Gone?"

"She went out the door like a puff of smoke. I just saw a gray figure inthe doorway, where the hall lamp made it brighter than in the room. WhenI came into the hall there wasn't a sign of anybody about. Norafterward, either!"

I considered briefly. 

"I suppose I know what you are thinking, Vere. It is natural, but wrong. The lady----"

"Mr. Locke, " he checked me, "I'm not--thinking. I guess you're as good ajudge as I am about what goes on in this house. After the way you'vetreated us from the first, I'd be pretty dull not to know you're aschoice of Phillida as I am; and she is all that matters. "

"Who is?" demanded Phillida, returning. "Me? I haven't the least ideawhat you are talking about, Drawls, but I think Cousin Roger matters agreat deal more than I do, just now. Perhaps now he is able to tell usabout this attack, and if he should have a doctor. I have noticed forweeks how thin and grave he has been growing to be. If only he _would_drink buttermilk!"

I looked into the candid, affectionate face she turned to me. From her, I looked to her husband, whose New England steadiness had been temperedby a sailor's service in the war and broadened by the test of hisexperience in a city cabaret. A new thought cleaved through myperplexities like an arrow shot from a far-off place. 

"How much do you both trust me?" I slowly asked. "I do not mean trust mycharacter or my good intentions, but how much confidence have you in mysanity and commonsense? Would you believe a thing because I told it toyou? Or would you say: 'This is outside usual experience. He isdeceiving us, or mad'?"

They regarded one another, smiling with an exquisite intimacy ofunderstanding. 

"Don't you see yourself one little, little bit, Cousin?" she wondered atme. 

"Anything you say, goes all the way with us, " Vere corroborated. 

"Wait, " I bade. "Drink your coffee while I think. "

"Please drink yours, Cousin Roger, all fresh and hot. "

I emptied the cup she urged upon me, then leaned my forehead in my handsand tried to review the situation. They obeyed like well-bred children, settling down on a cushioned seat together and taking their coffee asprettily as a pair of parakeets. They seemed almost children to me, although there was little difference in years between Vere and myself. But then, I stood on the brink where years stopped. 

With the next night, my triumphant enemy could be put off no longer. That I could not doubt. I cannot say that I was unafraid, yet fearweighed less upon me than a heavy sense of solemnity and realization ofthe few hours left during which I could affect the affairs of life. Whatremained to be done?

On one of my visits to New York, I had called on my lawyer and made mywill. There were a few pensioners for whom provision should continueafter my death. The aged music master under whom I developed suchabilities as I had, who was crippled now by rheumatism and otherwisedependent on a hard-faced son-in-law; the three small daughters of adead friend, an actor, whose care and education at a famous school ofclassic dancing I had promised him to finance--a few such obligationshad been provided for, and the rest was for Phillida. 

But now, what of Desire Michell?

She had seemed so apart from common existence that I never had thoughtof her possible needs any more than of the needs of a bird that dartedin and out of my windows. Until tonight, when I had seen her and she hadproved herself all woman by her appeal to Ethan Vere. It was not aspirit or a seeress or "ye foule witch, Desire Michell" who had fled tohim for help in rescuing me. It was simply a terrified girl. What was tobecome of this girl? Under what circumstances did she dwell? Had she ahome, or did she need one? Could I care for this matter while I washere?

Day was so far advanced that a clamor of birds came in to us along witha freshening air. The strangely persistent fog had not lifted, but thelamps already looked wan and faded in the new light. I switched them outbefore speaking to the pair who watched me. 

"I have a story to tell you both, " I said. "The beginning of it Phillidahas already heard. Perhaps----Have you told Vere about the woman whovisited this room, the first night I spent in the house? Who cut herhair and left the braid in my hand to escape from me?"

"Yes, " she nodded, wide-eyed. 

"Will you go to my chiffonier, there in the alcove, and bring a packagewrapped in white silk from the top drawer?"

She did as she was asked and laid the square of folded silk before me. Iput back the covering, showing that sumptuous braid. The rich fragranceof the gold pomander wrapped with it filled the air like a vivifyingelixir. Phillida gathered up the braid with a cry of envious rapture. 

"Oh! The gorgeous thing! How do some lucky girls have hair like that? Ifit was unbound, my two hands could not hold it all. What a pity to havecut it! Look, Ethan, how it crinkles and glitters. "

She held it out to him, extended across her palms. Vere refrained fromtouching the braid, surveying it where it lay. Being a mere bachelor, Ihad no idea of Phillida's emotions, until Vere's usual gravity broke ina mischievous, heart-warming smile into the brown eyes uplifted to him. 

"Beautiful, " he agreed politely. 

No more. But as I saw the wistful envy pass quite away from my littlecousin's plain face and leave her content, I advanced in respect forhim. 

In the beginning, it was even harder to speak than I had anticipated. When Phillida laid the braid back in its wrapping, I left it uncoveredbefore me and looked at its reassuring reality rather than at mylisteners. How, I wondered, could anyone be expected to credit the storyI had to tell? How should I find words to embody it?

Only at first! Whether there clung about me some atmosphere of that landbetween the worlds where I so recently had stood; or the room indeedkept, as I fancied, the melancholy chill of the unseen tide that hadwashed through it, I met no scepticism from the two who heard my tale ofwild experience. They did not interrupt me. Phillida crept close to herhusband, putting her hand in his, but she did not exclaim or question. 

Silence held us all for a while after I had finished. I had adiscouraged sense of inadequacy. After all, they had received but ameagre outline. The color and body of the events escaped speech. Howcould they feel what I had felt? How could they conceive the charm ofDesire Michell, the white magic of her voice in the dark, the force ofher personality that could impress her image "sight unseen" beyond alltime to erase? How convey to a listener that, understanding her solittle, I yet knew her so well?

"I have told you all this because I need your help, " I said presently. "Will you give it to me?"

"Go away!" Phillida burst forth. She beat her palms together in herearnestness. "Cousin Roger, take your car and go away--far off! Gowhere--nothing--can reach you. You must not spend another single nighthere. Ethan will go with you. I will, too, if you want us. You must notbe left alone until you are quite safe; perhaps in New York?"

"And, Desire Michell?"

"She is in no danger, I suppose. She is not my cousin, anyhow. And evenshe told you to go away. "

"You believe my story, then? You do not think me suffering fromdelusions?"

"Ethan saw the girl, too. If he had not come here in time to save you, Ibelieve you would have died in that terrible stupor. Besides, I haveseen for weeks that something was changing you. "

"What does Vere say?" I questioned, studying the absorbed gravity of hisexpression. I wondered what I myself would have said if anyone hadbrought me such a story. 

He passed his arm around Phillida and drew her to him with a quieting, protective movement. His regard met mine with more significance than hechose to voice. 

"I'm satisfied to take the thing as you tell it, Mr. Locke, " heanswered. "Phil is right, it seems to me, about you not staying here. Idon't think the young lady ought to stay, either. "

"She refuses to leave, Vere. What can I offer her that I have notoffered? How can I find her? You have heard how I searched thecountryside for a hint of such a girl's presence. No one has ever seenher; or else someone lies very cleverly. "

In the pause, Phillida hesitatingly ventured an idea:

"Perhaps she is not--real. If the monster is a ghost thing, may not shebe one, too? If we are to believe in such things at all----? She almostseems to intend that you shall believe her the ghost of the witch girlin that old book. "

I shook my head with the helpless feeling of trying to explain someabstruse knowledge to a child. I had spoken of the colossal spaces, thesolemn immensities of the place where I had set my human foot. I hadtried to paint the desolate bleakness of that Borderland where theunnamed Thing and I met, each beyond his own law-decreed boundary, andlocked in combat bitter and strong. Phillida had listened; and talked ofghosts the bugbears of grave-yard superstition. Did Vere comprehend mebetter? Did he visualize the struggle, weirdly akin to legends of knightand dragon, as prize of which waited Desire Michell; forlornly helplessas white Andromeda chained to her black cliff? Could the Mainecountryman, the cabaret entertainer, seize the truths glimpsed byRosicrucians and mystics of lost cults, when the highly bred collegegirl failed?

It seemed so. At least his dark eyes met mine with intelligence; hersheld only bewilderment and fear. 

"They are not ghosts, " I said only. 

"But how can you be sure?" she persisted. 

Beneath the braid and the pomander lay the sheet of paper on whichDesire had written weeks before; the first page of that composition nowpouring gold into my hands. This I passed to Phillida. 

"Do ghosts write?" I queried. 

She read the lines aloud. 

"'We walk upon the shadows of hills, across a level thrown, and pantlike climbers. '"

"They do write, people say, with ouija boards and mediums, " shemurmured. 

I looked at Vere with despair of sustaining this argument. He stood upas if my appeal had been spoken, drawing her with him. 

"Now that it's a decent hour, don't you think Cristina might give ussome breakfast?" he suggested. "I guess bacon and eggs would be sort ofrestoring. If you feel up to taking my arm as far as the porch, Mr. Locke, the fresh air might be good medicine, too. "

I have speculated sometimes upon how civilized man would get throughdays not spaced by his recurrent meals into three divisions. Those mealsare hyphens between his mind and his body, as it were. What sense ofhumor can view too intensely a creature who must feed himself threetimes a day? Are we not pleasantly urged out of our heroics and into thenormal by breakfast, luncheon and dinner? Deny it as we will, when we donot heed them we are out of touch with nature. 

We went downstairs. 

After breakfast was over, Vere and I walked across the orchard to a seatplaced near the lake. There I sat down, while he remained standing inhis favorite attitude: one foot on a low boulder, his arm resting on hisknee as he gazed into the shallow, amber-tinted water. Fog still overlaythe countryside, but without bringing coolness. The damp heat wasstifling, almost tropical as the sun mounted higher in the hidden sky. 

I watched my companion, waiting for him to speak. He appeared intentupon the darting movements of a group of tiny fish, but I knew histhoughts were afar. 

"Mr. Locke, I didn't want to speak before Phillida, because it would notdo any good for her to hear what I have to say, " he finally began. "Itis properly the answer to what you asked upstairs, about our believingyou had not imagined that story. Did anything slip out over thewindow-sill when you were waking up?"

Startled, for I had not spoken of this, I met his gaze. 

"Yes. Did you see----"

"Nothing, exactly. Something, though! Like--well, like something pouringitself along; a big, thick mass. Something sort of smooth andglistening; like black, oily molasses slipping over. Only alive, somehow; drawing coils of itself out of the dark into the dark. I can'tput it very plain. "

"What did you think?"

"The air in the room was bad and close, hard to breathe. I guessed maybeI was a little dizzy, jumping out of bed the way I did and finding youlike dead, almost. " He paused, and returned his contemplation to thefish darting in the lake. 

"That is what I thought, " he concluded. "What I felt--well, it was thekind of scare I didn't use to know you could feel outside of bad dreams;the kind you wake up from all shaking, with your face and hands drippingsweat. That isn't all, either!"

This time the pause was so long that I thought he did not mean tocontinue. 

"My excuse for speaking of such matters before Phillida is that I mayneed a woman friend for Desire Michell, " I reverted to the impliedrebuke I acknowledged his right to give. "I wanted her help, and yours. More than ever, since you have shared my experience so far, I want youradvice. "

"I'll be proud to give it, in a minute. First, it's only fair to sayI've felt enough wrong around here to be able to understand a lot thatonce I might have laughed at. Nothing compared to you! But--I've beenworking about the lake sometimes after dark or before daylight wasstrong, when a kind of horror would come over me--well, I'd feel I hadto get away and into the house or go crazy. That morning when you calledfrom your window to ask where I'd been so early, and I told you lookingfor turtles--that was one time. I had gone out looking for turtles, butthat horror drove me in. When you hailed me, I had it so bad that Icould just about make out not to run for the house like a scared cat, yelling all the way. Turning back to the lake with you was a poser. ButI did; and the feeling was all gone as quick as it came. We had a nicemorning's shooting. Once in a while I've felt it sort of driving meindoors when I stepped off the porch or over to the barn at night. That's a funny thing: the fear was always outside, not in the house. Ithought of that while you were telling us how the Thing at the windowkept trying to get in at you. We haven't got a haunted house, but ahaunted place!"

"Why have you not spoken of this before?" I asked, deeply stirred. 

He made a gesture, too American to be called a shrug. He said nothing, watching a large bubble rise through the pure, brown-green water, floatan instant on the surface, then vanish with the abrupt completeness of aminiature explosion. I watched also, with an always fresh interest inthe pretty phenomenon. Then I repeated my question, rather impatientlyas I considered what a relief his companionship in experience would haveafforded all these weeks. 

"Why not, Vere?"

"Mr. Locke, I don't like to keep saying that you never exactly got usedto me as your cousin's husband, " he reluctantly replied. "But I can seeit's a kind of surprise to you right along that I don't break down orbreak out in some fashion. Of course I haven't known that you weremeeting queer times, too! If you hadn't been through any of this, whatwould you have thought if I'd come to you with stories of the placebeing haunted by something nobody could see? You would have judged I wasa liar, trying to fix up an excuse for getting away from the work hereand shoving off. I don't want to go away. I don't intend to go. I can'tsee any need of it for Phil and me. But--and this is the advice youspoke of! I think you ought to leave and leave now. It's little betterthan suicide to stay. "

"And abandon Desire Michell?"

He turned his dark observant eyes toward me. 

"If I said yes, you wouldn't do it. Phil and I will take care of theyoung lady, if she will let us. Couldn't a note be left for her, tellingher to come to us?"

I shook my head. 

"She would not come. Now, less than ever----" I broke off, shot withsharp self-reproach at the memory of how I had driven her from me lastnight. 

"You won't be any help to her if you're dead, " he bluntly retorted. 

At that I rose and walked a few paces to knock out my post-breakfastpipe against an apple-tree. I was not so sure that he was right, self-evident as his statement appeared. Ideas moved confusedly in mymind, convictions somehow impressed when that golden-bronze spot oflight so gently came to rest above my heart when I last stood at theBarrier; the light so like the bright imagined head of Desire. To flyfrom my place now, herded like a cowardly sheep by the Thing of theFrontier, would that not be to thrust her away to save myself?

No! Not myself, my life!

I had the answer now. I walked back to Vere and took my seat again. 

"Both of us, or neither, " I told him. "If you can help me make it bothby any ingenuity, I shall be mighty glad. It's a pleasant world! But wewill not talk any more of my running for New York like a kicked pup. Thequestion is, will you and Phillida take care of the lady who callsherself Desire Michell, if tomorrow morning finds her free, but aloneand friendless?"

"As long as we live, Mr. Locke, " he answered. "But I guess there isn'tany disgrace in your going to New York, running or not, if you take herwith you. And that is what ought to have been done long ago. "

"Vere?"

He nodded. 

"You've got me! Just pick the lady up, carry her out of that room, andhave a show-down. Put her in your car and take her to town. "

"I gave her my word not----"

"People can't stand bowing to each other when the ship's afire. If sheis worth dying for, she doesn't want you to die for her. "

The simplicity of it! And, leaping the breach of faith, the temptation!

What harm could I do Desire by this plan of Vere's? What good might Inot do her? Was it mere slavishness of mind on my part not to overruleher timid will? She must pardon me when she realized my desperate case. A dying man might be excused for some roughness of haste, surely. Whether flight could save us I did not know. I did know absolutely thatmy enemy had crossed the Barrier last night, and I was prey merelywithheld from It by the chance respite of a few daylight hours. 

Suppose our escape succeeded? A whole troup of pictures flitted acrossthe screen of my fancy. Desire beside me in the city, my wife. Desire inthose delightful shops that make Fifth Avenue gay as a garden of tulips, where I might buy for her frocks and hats, shoes of conspicuousfrivolity and those long white gloves that seem to caress a woman'sarm--everything fair and fine. Restaurants I had described for her, where she might dine in silken ease and perhaps hear played the musicshe had named----

I aroused myself and looked at Vere. 

"You'll do it?" he translated my expression. 

"I will, if she gives me the opportunity. "

"Do you judge she will?"

"I hope so. Since she went so far as to show herself to you in order tosend help to me when I was in danger, I believe she will come to my roomtonight if I wait there----"

He looked at me silently. The consternation and protest in his face werespeech enough. 

"If I wait there alone, " I finished somewhat hurriedly. "If she comes intime, we will try the plan. Have the car ready. You and Phillida will beprepared, of course. We will waste no time in getting away as far aspossible. "

"And if that Thing comes before she does, Mr. Locke?"

"Is there any other way?"

"I guess you haven't considered that you're inviting me to stand bywhile you get yourself killed, " he said stiffly. "I'm not an educatedman. I never heard the names you mentioned this morning of people whoused to study out things like this. I never heard of any worlds exceptearth and heaven and hell. But then I couldn't explain how an electriccar runs. I know the car does run; and I know you nearly died lastnight. If you go back and stay alone in that room, we both know what youare going to meet. "

I turned away from him because I sickened at the prospect he evoked. Thememory of that death-tide was too near and rolled too coldly across thefuture. If the trial had been hard when mercifully unanticipated, whatwould it be to meet my enemy now that I knew myself conquered? Would Itnot deliberately forestall Desire's coming, tonight?

"Mightn't you help the lady more if you went away now, and came back?"he urged. 

The deserter's argument, time without end! Was I to fall as low as that?

Phillida's voice called to Vere from the veranda, summoning him to someneed of farm or household. 

"In a moment, Pretty, " he called assent. 

But he did not move. I guessed that he hoped much from my silence andwould not disturb me lest my decision be hindered or changed. 

By and by I stood up. 

"Vere, in your varied experiences in peace and war, did you ever chanceto meet a coward?"

"Once, " he answered briefly. 

"And, did you like the sight?"

"No. "

"Then, " I said, "let us not invite one another to that display. Shall wego in to Phillida?"

CHAPTER XVII

 "They say-- What say they? Let thame say!" --OLD SCOTTISH INSCRIPTION. 

After luncheon, I drove over to the village with Phillida, who had somehousewifely orders to give at the shops. On second thoughts, Vere and Ihad agreed to tell her nothing about the venture we planned for tonight. We had satisfied her by the assurance that I meant to start for New Yorkbefore the dangerous hours after midnight. Reassured, she regained herusual spirits with the buoyancy of her few years and healthy nerves. Igathered her secret belief was that no "ghost" would dare face Ethan. 

Which may have been quite true!

On our way home, we stopped at the shop of Mrs. Hill to add to oursupply of eggs, Phillida's hens having unaccountably failed to supplytheir quota. I went in, leaving my companion in the car. 

No one else was in the shop. An impulse prompted me to put a question tothe little woman whose life had been spent in this neighborhood. 

"Mrs. Hill, did you ever hear of anyone named Desire Michell?" I asked. 

She stopped counting eggs and blinked up at me. Her sallow, wrinkledface lightened with curiosity and an absurd primness. 

"Now, Mr. Locke! I'd like to know where a young city feller like you gotthat old story from?"

"I have not got it. I want you to tell it to me. She was a witch?"

"She was a hussy, " said Mrs. Hill severely. "I was a little girl whenshe ran away from her father's respectable house, fifty-odd years ago. The disgrace killed him, being a clergyman. An' the gossip that cameback, later, an' pictures of her in such dresses! Dear! Dear! The wickedcertainly have opportunities. "

"Fifty years ago!" I echoed, dazed by this intrusion of a third DesireMichell. 

"Ah! Nearly seventy she'd be if she was alive today; which she ain't. Why, she changed her name to one fancier that you might have heard talkof? She was----"

The name she gave me I shall not set down. It is enough to say it wasthat of a super-woman whose beauty, genius and absolute lack ofconscience set Europe ablaze for a while. A torch of womanhood, quenchedat the highest-burning hour of her career by a sudden and violent death. 

"There was an older house once, on your place, " she added pensively. "Did you know that? It stood in the hollow where your lake is now. Two--three hundred years old, folks say it was. One night it burned downin a big thunderstorm. The Michells then living had your house builtover by the orchard, then, an' had a dam built across so as to cover upthe old site with water. All the Michells lived there till the last onewent missionary abroad an' died in foreign parts. I mean the hussy'sbrother. He took up his father's work, feelin' a strong call. He wasonly a young boy when his sister went off, but he felt it dreadful. Hewas a hard man on the sinner. Preached hell and damnation all his days, he did. Lean over the pulpit, he would, his eyes flamin' fire an' histongue shrivellin' folks in their pews, I can tell you!"

"He left children?" I asked. 

"No, sir! Rev'rund never married. He felt women a snare. Land, not muchsnarin' with what farm women get to wear around here! I've kind ofthought of one of those blue foulard silks with white spots into itsince before I married Hill, but never came any nearer than pricin' itan' bringin' home a sample. He was death on sweet odors an' softraiment. Only sweet odors I ever get are the ten-cent bottles Hill makesthe pedlar throw in when we trade. I do fancy _Jockey Club_ for specialtimes, an' I've got a reasonable hope of salvation, too. I notice yourcousin, Mrs. Vere, has scent on her handkerchief week days as well aswhen she's goin' somewhere, so I guess you don't hold with the Rev'rundMichell in New York?"

I laughed with her as I took up the bag of eggs. 

"Did the runaway sister leave any children?" I queried. 

"Not a Michell alive anywhere, " she asserted positively. "Dead, alldead! The Rev'rund was buried at his mission in some outlandish place. An' if those heathen women dress like I've seen in the movin' picturepalace in the village, I don't know how he makes out to rest with themflauntin' past his grave!"

I went thoughtfully out to the car. Indeed, I drove home in suchabstraction that Phillida reproved me. 

"'The cat has stolen your tongue, '" she teased. "Or did Mrs. Hill vampyou and make roast meat of your heart with her eyes?"

"Phil, do you put scent on your handkerchief week days as well asSundays?" I shook off thought to inquire. 

"No; I keep sachet in my handkerchief box. Why?"

"Next time you are in town, will you buy a blue silk foulard dress withwhite spots in it and the largest bottle of Jockey Club Extract on sale, and give them to Mrs. Hill for a Christmas present? I'll give you ablank check. "

"Cousin Roger? Why?"

So I told her why. But I did not tell her the story of the second DesireMichell; nor of the original house that stood in the hollow now filledby our lake. 

Why had a peculiar horror crept through me when Mrs. Hill told me whatruins that water covered? Why had I remembered the inexplicable, repugnant sound that on several occasions had preceded the coming of theMonster; a sound like the smack of huge lips, or some body withdrawnfrom thick slime? Was entrance into human air open to the alien Thingonly through the ruins of the house where It had first been called bythe sorceress of long ago?

We were walking across from the garage, after putting away the car, whena recollection flashed upon me. The Metropolitan Museum, in New York, held a portrait by a famous French artist of that incendiary beautywhose name it now appeared cloaked the identity of Desire Michell, daughter and sister of New England clergymen. I had seen the portrait. And piled in an intricate magnificence of curls, puffs and coils aboutthe haughty little head of the lady, was her gold-bronze hair; the colorof the braid upstairs in my chiffonier drawer. 

I went up to my room and opened the work of Master AbimelechFetherstone. Yes, there was likeness between the poor, coarse woodcutand the French portrait. The long, dark eyes with their expression ofblended drowsiness and watchfulness were too individual to have escapedeither record. Moreover, both pictures resembled that face of ivory anddusk I had glimpsed in the ray of the electric torch, all clouded andsurrounded by swirls of gray vapor shot with gold. 

Who and what was the girl Desire Michell whom I had come to love througha more profound darkness than that of the sight?

It seemed wisest to keep busy for the rest of the afternoon. I sorted mymusic. There was the score of a musical comedy so nearly completed thatit could be sent to those who waited for it. Vere would attend to that, if tonight made it necessary. I reflected with disappointment that thefirst rehearsals would begin in a couple of weeks, and I had lookedforward to this production with especial interest. There was thesymphony, still unfinished, that I had hoped might be more enduring thanpopular music. If I was to be less enduring than either, we must goglimmering on our ways. If I snatched Desire out of her path into mine, she and I would see all those things together. 

I finished at last, and set my room in order. There was a fire laidready for lighting in my hearth, a mere artistic flourish in suchweather. I kindled it, and put in the flames three of the volumes fromthe ancient bookcase. The others were oddities in occult science. Thosethree were vile and poisonous. No doubt other copies exist, but at leastI refused to be guilty of leaving these to wreak their mischief inPhillida's household. They burned quietly enough, and meekly fell toashes under my poker. 

Our round dinner-table was cheerful as usual, with yellow-shaded candlesflanking a bowl of yellow and scarlet nasturtiums. But I found itsmistress suffering from a nervous headache. 

"It is only the fog, " she answered our sympathy. "It came on with theevening, somehow. Never mind me. Cristina has made a cream-of-lettucebisque, and she will never forgive us if we do not eat every bit. Yes, Ethan; of course I'll take mine. I only wish every bush and tree wouldnot drip, drip like a horrid kind of clock ticking; and the foghornsover at the lighthouses _moo_ regularly every half minute. And I neverheard the waterfall over the dam so loud!"

"We've had a wet summer, " Vere observed, soothingly tranquil as ever. "The lake and creek are full. There is more water going over to make anoise. "

"Please do not be so frightfully sensible, Drawls. You know I mean adifferent loudness. It sort of rises up and swims all over one, thendies away. "

"Even a fountain will seem to do that if a wind shifts the spray, " Isuggested. 

"Yes, Cousin Roger. But there is no wind tonight. "

A discomfort stirred me at the simple reminder. I fancied Vere wassimilarly affected. If something moved under the water----?

We changed the conversation to a pergola planned for building nextspring, that was to be overrun by grapevines and honeysuckle. 

"The grapes shall hang through like an Italian picture, " Phillidaanticipated, headache forgotten in her enthusiasm. She shook her hairabout her pink cheeks, leaning over to outline a pergola with fourspoons. "Here in the middle we must have a birdbath. Or no! The birdsmight peck the grapes. We could have one of those big silver-coloredlooking-balls on a pedestal to reflect wee views of the garden and lakeand sky, with people moving no bigger than dolls. Imagine a reflectionof Ethan like a Lilliputian _so_ high!"

So I was able to leave her eagerly hunting catalogues of gardenornaments in her sewing-room, when the time came for me to keep myrendezvous with Death or the lady. In spite of my warning gesture, Verefollowed me into the hall. His dark face was distressed and anxious. 

"Let me go with you, " he urged. 

"No, thanks. Stay with Phil, and keep her too busy to suspect where Iam. "

"If I'm doing wrong to let you go, " he began. 

"You cannot stop me. It is still too early for danger, I think. If youlike, you can stroll out on the lawn from time to time and look up at mywindows. As long as the lamps are lighted in the room, I am all right. Nothing is happening. "

"Your lamps were all three lighted when I found you last night, " hesaid. 

The darkness had been only for my eyes, then? Certainly I had seemed tosee light withdrawn from the lamps. I mastered a tremor of the nerves, and covered it by stroking Bagheera, who sat on a hall chair making anafter-dinner toilet with tongue and paw. 

"Well, take care of Phil, " I repeated, evading argument. 

He detained me. 

"The young lady might not come if there were two people, Mr. Locke. Ican see that! But I'll go instead. I guess I'd be safer than you, withthe--the----You know what I mean! It would be the first time for me. Andif I sat waiting in the dark, the lady couldn't tell you were not there. Of course I'd bring her right to you. "

No one could appreciate the courage of that offer so well as we who hadboth felt the intolerable horror of the nearness of the Thing whosenature was beyond our nature to endure. 

"She would come to no one except me, " I refused. "But, thank you. AndVere, if what you have said about my feeling toward Phillida's husbandwas true once, it is true no longer. "

His clasp was still warm on my hand when I went into my room andswitched on the lights. Soft and colorful, the haunted room sprang intoview. The writing-table and piano gleamed bare without their usualburdens of scattered papers and music, removed that afternoon. For lackof familiar occupation, when I sat down in my favorite place, I took upthe gold pomander and fell to studying the intricate designs worked inthe metal. 

"_Containing a rare herb of Jerusalem called Lady's Rose, resemblingspikenard, with vervain, and cedar, and secret simples----_"

"_Vervain, which is powerful against evil spirits----_"

The strange fragrance, heady as the bouquet of rich wine, never cloying, exquisite, might well have seemed magical to the dry Puritans, I mused. It should stay by me tonight, like a promise of her coming. 

After I had sat there a while, I turned out the lights. 

CHAPTER XVIII

 "An excellent way to get a fayrie--and when you have her, bind her!"--ANCIENT ALCHEMIST'S RECIPE. 

In the darkness Time crept along like a crippled thing, slow-moving, hideous. Outside fell the monotonous drip, drip from trees and bushes, likened by Phillida to a horrid clock. The fog was a sounding-board forfurtive noises that grew up like fungi in the moist atmosphere. Thethought of Phillida and Vere down in the pleasant living room tempted mealmost beyond resistance. I wanted to spring up, to rush out of theroom; to fling myself into my car and drive full speed until strengthfailed and gasoline gave out. 

Was that the lake which stirred in the windless night? The lake, underwhich lay the fire-blackened ruins of the house where the first DesireMichell flung open an awful door that her vengeance might stridethrough!

Was it too late for my Desire to come, and time for the coming of thatOther?

The step of Vere sounded on the gravel path where he walked beneath thewindow. He was making a trip of inspection, and would find no lightshining from the room. I was about to rise and call down a word ofreassurance to him, when a current of spiced air passed by me. I satarrested in hope and expectancy. 

"Here, after my warning, after last night?" her soft voice panted acrossthe dark. "Will you die, then? Cruel to me, and wicked to come hereagain! Oh, must I wish you were a coward!"

Every vestige of her calmness gone, she was sobbing as she spoke. Icould imagine she was wringing the little hands that once had left abetraying print upon my table's surface. 

"I was cruel to you last night, Desire; yet afterward you saved my lifeby sending Ethan Vere to wake me. Would you have had me leave withoutmeeting you again, neither thanking you nor asking your forgiveness?"

I thought she came nearer. 

"For so little, you would brave the Dread One in Its time of triumph? Osteadfast soldier, who faces the Breach even in the hour of death, inall that you have done you have remembered me. Why speak of anger orforgiveness? Have I not injured you?"

"Never. I love you. "

"Is not that an injury? Even though I hid my ill-omened face from you, reared as I was to sad knowledge of the wrath upon me, the wrong hasbeen done. Weak as water in the test, I kept the letter of my promiseand broke the intent. Yet go; keep life at least. "

"Desire, I do not understand you, " I answered. "No matter for that, now!I am content to share whatever you bring. Not roughly or in challenge asI asked you last night, but earnestly and with humility I ask you tocome away with me now. If trouble comes to my wife and me, I do notdoubt we can bear it. Let us not be frightened from the attempt. Come. "

"I, to take happiness like that?" she marveled in desolate amazement. "No. At least I will go to my own place, if tardily. Roger, be kind tome. Give me a last gift. Let me know that somewhere you are living. Outof my sight, out of my knowledge, but living in the same world with me. Each moment you stay here is a risk. "

In that warning she had reason. I rose. It was time to act, but actionmust be certain. If my groping movements missed her in the dark theremight be no second chance. 

"Desire, if all is as you say and we are not to meet again as we havedone, you shall let me touch you before I go, " I said firmly. 

"No!"

"Yes. Why, would you have me live all the years to come in doubt whetheryou were a woman or a dream? Perhaps you might seem at last a phantom ofmy own sick brain to which faithfulness would be folly? Here across thetable I stretch my arm. Lay your palm in my palm. I may die tonight. "

Whether she wished it also, or whether my resolve drew obedience, I donot know. But a vague figure moved through the dark toward me. A handsettled in mine with the brushing touch of an alighting bird. I closedmy hand hotly upon that one. I sprang a step aside from the tablebetween us, found her, and drew her to me. 

What did I hold in my arms? Softness, fragrance, draperies beneath whichbeat life and warmth. As I stooped to reassure her, her breath curledagainst my cheek. So with that guide I turned my head, and set my lipson the lips I had never seen. 

Did Something uprear Itself out there in the black fog? A cold airrushed across the summer heat of the fog; air foul as if issued from theopened door of a vault. As once before, a tremor quivered through thehouse. The hanging chains of the lamps swung with a faint tinklingsound. 

I snatched Desire Michell off her feet and sprang for the door. SomehowI found and opened it at the first essay. We were out into the hall. With one hand I dragged the door shut behind us, then carried her on tothe head of the stairs. There I set her down, but stood before her as abar against any attempt at escape. 

A lamp shed a subdued light above us. I looked at my captive. Neveragain after that kiss could she deny her womanhood or pose as a phantom. So far my victory was complete. The lady might be angry, but it must bewoman's anger. I knew she had not suspected my intention until I liftedher in my arms. She had struggled then, after her defenses had fallen. 

She was quiet now, as though the light had quelled her resistance. Shestood drooped and trembling; not the old-time witch, not the dazzlingadventuress, only a small fragile girl wound and wrapped in some graystuff that even covered the brightness of her hair. Her face was helddown and showed no more color than a water-lily. 

"I thought, " she whispered, just audibly. "I thought you--would say, good-bye!"

"I know, " I stammered. "But I could not. That way was impossible forus. "

She did not contradict me. She was so very small, I saw, that her headwould reach no higher than where the bright spot had rested above myheart when I had last stood at the Barrier. One hand gripped the veilsbeneath her chin, and seemed the clenched fist of a child. 

The crash of my door had startled the household. I had heard Phillidacry out, and Vere's running steps upon the gravel path. Now he camespringing up the stairs. At the head of the flight he stopped, staringat us. 

"Desire, " I spoke as naturally as I could manage, "this is Mr. Vere. Vere, my fiancée, Miss Michell. Shall we go down to Phillida?"

And Desire Michell did not deny my claim. 

I am not very sure of how we found ourselves downstairs. Nor do Iremember in what words we made the two girls known to one another. Presently we were all in the living room, and Phillida had possession ofDesire Michell while Vere and I looked on stupidly at the proceedings. 

Phil had placed her in a chair beside a tall floor-lamp and gently drewoff the draperies that hooded her. With little murmurs of compassion, she unbound and shook free her guest's hair. 

"My dear, you are all damp! This awful fog! You must have been out along time? You shall drink some tea before we start. Drawls, will youlight the alcohol lamp on the tea-table? The kettle is filled. "

Now I could understand how Desire had appeared amid a drift of fireshotsmoke in the beam of my electric torch, the night before. Her hair was agarment of flame-bright silk flowing around her, curling and eddying inrich abundance. Over this she had worn the gray veils to smother allthat color and sheen into neutral sameness with night and shadows. Nowonder her face had seemed wraith-like when her startled shrinking awayfrom the light had set all that drapery billowing about her. 

She was the voice that had been my intimate comrade through weeks ofstrange adventure. She was the woman of the faded, yellow book, and thepainted beauty at the Metropolitan. She was all the Desires of whom Ihad ever dreamed; and she was none of them, for she was herself. Herlong dark eyes, suddenly lifted to me, were individual by that ancestralblending of drowsiness with watchfulness; yet were akin to the eyes ofyouth in all times by their innocence. Her mouth, too, was the softmouth of a young girl kept apart from sordid life. But her forehead, thenoble breadth between the black tracery of her eyebrows, expressed thestudent whose weird, lofty knowledge had so often abashed my ignorance. 

Only my ignorance? Now as she looked at me across the room, allself-confidence trickled away from me. What distinguished me from athousand men she might meet on any city street? What had I ever saidworth note in the hours we had spent together? Now she saw me in thelight, plainly commonplace; and remembering myself lame, I stood amazedat the audacity with which I had laid claim to her. 

She was rising from the chair, gently putting aside Phillida's detaininghands. She had not spoken one word since her faltered speech to me, upstairs. Neither Vere nor Phillida had heard her voice. She had givenher hand to each of them and submitted to Phil's care with a docility Ifailed to recognize in my companion of the dark. Her decisive movementnow was more like the Desire Michell I knew. Only, what was she about todo? Repudiate my violence and me--perhaps go back to her hiding-place?

She came straight to where I stood, not daring even to advance towardher. We might have been alone in the room. I rather think we were, toher preoccupation. 

"You must go away, " she said. "If there is any hope, it is in that. Nothing else matters, now; nothing! If you wish, take me with you. Itwould be wiser to leave me. But nothing really matters except that youshould not stay here. I will obey you in everything if you will only go. Take your car and drive--drive fast--anywhere!"

It is impossible to convey the desperate urgency and fervor of her lowvoice. Phillida uttered an exclamation of fear. Vere wheeled about andleft the room. The front door closed behind him. The gravel crunchedunder his tread on the path to the garage, and the rate at which thelight he carried moved through the fog showed that he was running. Heobviously accepted the warning exactly as it was given. After thebriefest indecision, Phillida hurried out into the hall. 

For my part, I did nothing worth recording. I had made discovery of twoplaces where I was not the "lame feller. " And if the first place was thedreary Frontier, the second country was that rich Land of Promise inDesire Michell's eyes. 

What we said in our brief moment of solitude is not part of thisaccount. 

Phillida was back promptly, her arms full of garments. With littlemurmurs of explanation by way of accompaniment, she proceeded to investDesire in a motor coat and a dark-blue velvet hat rather like anartist's tam-o'shanter. I noticed then that the girl wore a plain frockof gray stuff, long of sleeve and skirt, fastened at the base of herthroat with severe intent to cover from sight all loveliness of tint andcontour. Nothing farther from the fashion of the day or the figure of mycousin could be imagined. 

"You must wear the coat because it is always cool motoring at night, "Phillida was murmuring. "And of course you will want it at a hotel;until you can do some shopping. I will just tie back your gorgeous, scrumptious hair with this ribbon, now. I know I haven't enough hairpinsto put it up without wasting an awful lot of time, but we will buy themin the morning. We are going to take the very best care of you everyminute, so you must not worry. "

"You are so kind to me, " Desire began tremulously. "No one was ever sokind! It does not matter about me, or what people think of me, if hewill only go from here quickly. "

"Right away, " Phillida soothed. "My husband has gone for the car. I hearhim coming now!"

In fact, Vere was coming up the veranda steps. His hand was on the knobof the outer door, fumbling with it in a manner not usual to him, thenthe knob yielded and he was inside. 

"But how slow you are, Drawls, " his wife called, with an accent ofwonder. 

Vere crossed the threshold of the room, his gaze seeking mine. He waspale, and drops of fog moisture pearled his dark face like sweat. 

"I am sorry, Mr. Locke, " he addressed me, ignoring the others. "Perhapsyou felt that shake-up, a quarter-hour ago? Like a kind of earthquake, or the kick from a big explosion a long ways off? It didn't seem verystrong to me. It was too strong for that old tree by the garage, though!Must have been decayed clear through inside. Willows are like that, tricky when they get old. "

"Ethan, what _are_ you talking about?" cried Phillida, aghast. 

He continued to look at me. 

"I guess it must have fallen just about when you slammed your doorupstairs. Seems I do remember a sort of second crash following the noiseyou made. I was too keen on finding out what was happening up there topay much heed. "

"Well, Vere?"

"Tree smashed down through the roof of the garage, " he reluctantly gavehis report. "Everything under the hood of the automobile is wrecked. There is no motor left, and no radiator. Just junk, mixed up with brokenwood and leaves and pieces of the stucco and tiles of the garage. "

So there was to be no going tonight from the house beside the lake. Afrustrated group, we stood amid our preparations; the two girls wearingcloaks and hats for the drive that would never be taken. Had we everreally expected to go? Already the project was fading into the realm offantastic ideas, futile as the pretended journeys of children who arekept in their nursery. Desire lifted her hands and took off the bluevelvet cap with a resignation more expressive than words. Only mypractical little cousin charged valiantly at all obstacles. 

"We aren't ever going to give up?" she cried protest. "Cousin Roger?Ethan? _You_ cannot mean to give up. Why--'phone to the nearest garageto send us another car. If we pay them enough they will drive anywhere. Or if they cannot take us to New York, they will take us to the railroadstation where we can get a train for some place. Can't we, Drawls?"

"We could, " Vere admitted. "I'd admire to try it, anyhow. But thetelephone wire came across the place right past the garage, youknow----"

"The tree tore the wire down, too?"

"I'm afraid it snapped right in two, Phil. "

"We--we might walk, " she essayed. 

But even her brave voice trailed into silence as she glanced toward theblack, dripping night beyond the windows. 

"Or if we found a horse and wagon, " she murmured a final suggestion. 

Vere shook his head. 

"Come!" I assumed charge with a cheerfulness not quite sincere. "None ofus are ready for such desperate efforts to leave our cozy quarters here. Especially as I fancy Vere's 'earthquake' was the tremor of anapproaching thunderstorm. I felt it, myself. Let us light all the lampsand draw the curtains to shut out the fog which has got on everyone'snerves by its long continuance. We are overwrought beyond reason. Suppose we sit here together, strong in numbers, for the few hours untildaylight? I think that should be safeguard enough. Tomorrow we will doall we had planned for tonight. Come in, Vere, and close the door. "

He obeyed me at once. Desire Michell passively suffered me to unfastenand take off the coat she wore, too heavy for such a night. She haduttered no word since Vere announced the destruction of the car. She didnot speak now, when I put her in the low chair beneath the lamp. I had agreed of light for her, as a protection and because darkness had heldher so long. 

"It seems as if we should do something!" Phillida yielded unwillingly. 

Vere's eyes met mine as he turned from drawing the last curtain. We wereboth thinking of the force that had driven the frail old willow treethrough tile and cement of the new building to flatten the metal ofmotor and car into uselessness. The mere weight of the tree would nothave carried it through the roof. To "do something" by way of physicalescape from that----

The ribbon had glided from Desire's hair, almost as if the vital, resilient mass resentfully freed itself from restraint by the bit ofsatin. Now she put up her hands with a slow movement and drew two broadstrands of the glittering tresses across her shoulders, veiling herface. 

"Wait, " she answered Phillida, most unexpectedly. "I must be sure--quitesure! I must think. If you will--wait. "

CHAPTER XIX

 "Oh, little booke--how darst thou put thyself in press for drede?"--CHAUCER. 

We sat quietly waiting. I had drawn a chair near Desire. Phillida andVere were together, chairs touching, her right hand curled into hisleft. Bagheera the cat had slipped into the room before the door wasclosed, and lay pressed against his mistress's stout little boot. Oursmall garrison was assembled, surely for as strange a defense as eversober moderns undertook. For my part, it was wonder enough to study thatcaptive who was at once so strange yet so intimately well known to me. 

The Tiffany clock on the mantel shelf chimed midnight. Soon after, webegan to experience the first break in the heavy monotony of heat andfog that had overlaid the place for three days. The temperature began tofall. The fog did not lift. The flowered cretonne curtains hung straightfrom their rods unstirred by any movement of air. But the atmosphere inthe room steadily grew colder. I saw Phillida shiver in the chilldampness and pull closer the collar of her thin blouse. When Desirefinally spoke, we three started as if her low tones had been the clangof a hammer. 

"I have tried to judge what is best, " she said, not raising her facefrom its shadowing veil of hair. "I am not very wise. But it seemsbetter that there should be no ignorance between us. If I had beeneither wise or good, I should never have come down from the convent todraw another into danger and horror without purpose or hope of any goodending. "

"The convent?" I echoed, memory turning to the bleak building far up thehillside. "You came from there?"

"There is a path through the woods. I am very strong and vigorous. But Ihad to wait until all there were asleep before I could come. Sometimes Icould not come at all. For this house, I had my father's old key. It wasonly for this little time while I am being taught. Soon I will put on anun's dress and cut my hair, and--and never--never leave there anymore. "

Stupefied, I thought of the black loneliness of the wooded hillsidebehind us. No wonder the fog was wet upon her hair! Her slight feet hadtraversed that path night after night, had brought her to the door herkey fitted, had come through the dark house to the door of the roomupstairs. When she left me, she had toiled that desolate way back. Forwhat? Humility bent me, and bewilderment. 

"But why?" Phillida gasped. "Why? Cousin Roger hunted everywhere to findyou. He would have gone anywhere you told him to see you. Didn't youknow that?"

"I never meant him to see me. "

"Why not?"

"I am Desire Michell, fourth of that name; all women who broughtmisfortune upon those who cared for them, " she answered, her voice lowerstill. "How shall I make you understand? I was brought up to know thewrath and doom upon me, yet I myself can scarcely understand. My fatherknew all, yet he fell in weakness. "

"Your father?" I questioned, recalling Mrs. Hill's positive genealogy ofthe Michells in which there was no place for this daughter of the line. 

"He was the last of his family. When he was very young the convictioncame to him that his duty was never to marry, so our race might cease toexist. He lived here and preached against evil. He studied the ancientlearning that he might be fitted to wrestle with sin. But in the endhorror of what was here gained upon him so that he closed the house andwent abroad to work as a missionary. There was a girl; the daughter ofthe clergyman who was leaving the mission. My father--fell in love. Heforgot all his convictions and married her. He knew it was a sin, but itwas stronger than he was. She only lived one year. When I was born, shedied. He prayed that I would die, too. But--I----"

Her voice died into silence. I ventured to lean nearer and take her handinto mine. 

"Desire, " I said, "why should you be a sufferer for the actions of awoman who died over two centuries ago? What is the long dead DesireMichell to you?"

A strange and solemn hush followed my question. The words seemed to takea significance and importance beyond their simple meaning. The hand Iheld trembled in my clasp. She answered at last, just audibly:

"You know. You said that you had read her book. "

"But the book tells so little, Desire. Just such a chronicle ofsuperstition as may be found in a hundred old records. "

She shook her head slightly. 

"Not that! Bring me the book. "

The book was upstairs in the room from which I had carried her half anhour before in something very like a panic flight. Before I couldrelease her hand and rise, before I comprehended his intention, Vere wasout of the living room and upon the stairs. It was too late to overtakehim. The man who had been a professional skater covered the stairs in afew easy, swinging strides. We heard his light tread on the flooroverhead, heard him stop beside the table where the book lay. Then, hewas returning. My door closed. His step sounded on the stairs again; ina moment he was back among us, and quietly offering the volume to ourguest. His dark eyes met mine reassuringly, deprecating the thoughts Iam sure my face expressed. 

"Lights burning and all serene up there, " he announced. 

Desire touched the book with a curious repugnance. 

"I was looking for this, the first night I came here, " she murmured. "That is why I came to America after my father died. I had promised himto destroy this record. When I heard that the house was sold to agentleman from New York, I came down from the convent on the hill tofind the bookcase holding the old history. I did not know anyone washere, that night, until you touched my hair. "

I remembered the bookcase near the bed, where I stood my candle andmatches. Unaware, I had prevented her finding the thing she sought, andso forced her to return. Afterward, the house had been full of workmenmaking alterations and improvements, until later still Phillida hadtransferred the bookcase and its contents to her sewing room. If I hadnot taken the whim to sleep in the old house on the night of mypurchase, or if I had chosen another room, the existence of DesireMichell might never have been known to me. 

Would the creature from the Barrier have appeared to me, if I had notknown her?

She was drawing something from behind the portrait of the first DesireMichell; a thin, small book that had lain concealed between the cover ofthe larger volume and the page bearing the woodcut, where a sort ofpocket was formed that had escaped our notice. Laid upon the table, thelittle book rolled away from the girl's fingers and lay curled uponitself in the lamplight. The limp morocco cover was spotted with mildewand half-revealed pages of close, fine writing blotched in places withrusty stains. It gave out an odor of mould and age in an atmosphere madesweet by Desire's presence. 

Phillida, who had been silent even when Vere left her to go upstairs, shrank away from the book on the table. She darted a glance over hershoulder at the curtained windows behind her. 

"Drawls, I cannot help what everybody thinks of me, " she saidplaintively. "I am cold. The fire is ready laid in the grate. Will youput a match to it, please?"

No one smiled at the request. Her husband uttered some soothing phraseof compliance. We all looked on while the flame caught and began tocreep up among the apple-logs. Bagheera rose and changed his position toone before the hearth. When Vere stood erect, Desire leaned toward him. 

"Will you read, aloud, sir?" she asked of him, and made a gesture towardthe morocco book. 

She surprised us all by that choice. I was unreasoning enough to feelslighted, although the task was one for which I felt a strong dislike. Ifancied Vere liked the idea no better, from his expression. However, heoffered no demur, but sat down at the table and began to flatten thewarped pages that perversely sprang back and clung about his fingers. Desire slowly turned her lovely eyes to me, eyes that looked by gift ofnature as if their long corners had been brushed with kohl. She saidnothing, yet somehow conveyed her meaning and intent. I understood thatshe did not wish to hear me read those pages; that it was painful to herthat they should be read at all. 

Vere was ready. He glanced around our circle, then began with the simpledirectness that gave him a dignity peculiarly his own. 

"'Mistress Desire Michell, her booke, Beginning at the nineteenth yearof her Age, '" he read, in his leisurely voice. 

The living Desire Michell and I were regarding one another. I smiled atthe quaint wording, but she shuddered, and put her hands across hereyes. 

Yet there was nothing in those first pages except a girl's chronicle ofvillage life. This book evidently carried on a diary kept from earlychildhood; a diary written out of loneliness. Apparently the barecolonial life pressed heavily upon the writer; who, having no companionsof the intellect, turned to this record of her own mind as a prisonermight talk to his reflection in a mirror rather than go mad from sheersilence. Discontent and restlessness beat through the lines likefluttering wings. She wrote of her own beauty with a cool appraisaloddly removed from vanity, almost with resentment of a possession shecould not use. 

"Like a man who finds treasure in a desert isle, I am rich in coin thatI may not spend, " she wrote. "I stand before my mirror and take a tressof my hair in either hand; I spread wide my arms full reach, yet Icannot touch the end of those tresses. Nor can my two hands clasp thebulk of them. There have been other women who had such hair, who were ofbody straight and white, and had the eyes--but I cannot read that theystayed poor and obscure. "

There followed some quotations from the classics of which I was able togive but vague translations when Vere passed the book to me, bothbecause my knowledge was scanty and because of their daringunconventionality. There were allusions, too, to ladies of later historywho had found fairness a broad staircase for ambition to mount. Of thewriter's learning, there could be no question; a learning amazing in oneso young and so situated. The source of this became apparent. Her fatherwas consumed with the passion of scholarship, and the girl's hungry mindfed in the pastures where he led the way. 

Here crept into view an anomaly of character. The austere Puritandivine, whose life was open and blank, bare and cold as a winter field, cherished a secret dissipation of the mind. He labored upon a book onthe errors of magic. So laboring, he became snared by the thing hedenounced. He believed in the hidden lore while he condemned it. Deeperand deeper into forbidden knowledge his eagerness for research led him. Unsanctioned by any church were the books Dr. Michell starved his bodyto buy from Jews or other furtive dealers in unusual wares. The titlesin his library comprehended the names of more charlatans than bishops. He could define the distinctions between necromancy, sorcery, and magic. The marvelous calculations of the Pythagoreans engaged him, and the lostmysteries of the Cabiri. 

From such studies he would arise on the Sabbath to preach sermons thatheld his dull flock agape. Bitter draughts of salvation he poured fortheir spiritual drinking. He scarcely saw how any man might escapehell-fire, all being so vile. Against witchcraft and tampering withSatan's agents he was eloquent. He rode sixty miles in midwinter to seea Quaker whipped and a woman hung who had been convicted as a witch. 

Of all this, his daughter wrote with an elfin mockery. Her brilliant eyeof youth saw through the inconsistency of the beliefs he strove toreconcile. She learned his lore, read his books, and discarded hisdoctrine. 

"I study with him, but I think alone, " she set down her independence. 

Without his knowledge, she proceeded to actual experiment with rudecrucible and alembic in her own chamber. She essayed some age-oldrecipes of blended herbs and ingredients within her reach, handled atcertain hours of the night and phases of the moon. All were innocentenough, it seemed. She cured a beloved old dog of rheumatism and partialblindness. She discovered an exquisite perfume which she named Rose ofJerusalem. 

But the experiments were not fortunate, she made obscure complaint. Thedog, cured, lived only a few weeks. The perfume, in which she revelledwith a fierce, long-denied appetite, steeping her rich hair in it andher severely dull garments, awoke many whispers in a community wheresweet odors were unknown and disapproved. She alluded, with a minglingof freezing scorn and triumph, to the young men who followed afterher--"seeking a wife who would be at their hearth as fatal a guest asthat fair woman sent by an enemy to Alexander the Great, whose honeybreath was deadly poison to who so kissed there. "

Into this situation rode the fine gentleman from the colonial world offashion who was to fix the fate of Desire Michell and his own. 

From this point on, the diary was a record of the same story as the"History of Ye foule Witch, Desire Michell. "

The love affair that followed Sir Austin's visit to the clergyman'shouse leaped hot and instant as flame from oil and fire broughttogether. The girl was parched with thirst for life, yet despised allaround her. The man was dazzled by a beauty and mentality foreign as abird of paradise found nested in Connecticut snow. A mad, wild passionlinked them that was more than half a duel. For Sir Austin was alreadybetrothed. Honor might not have chained him for long, but his need ofhis betrothed's fortune proved more enduring. He was a man bred towealth, who did not possess it. He offered Desire Michell his left hand. 

He was turned out of her father's house with a red weal struck acrosshis face like a brand. 

Of course he returned. The arrow was firmly fixed. He asked her to marryhim, and was refused with savage contempt. He would not take therefusal. Her heart and ambition were hidden traitors to his cause. Inthe end she surrendered and the marriage day was set. 

Sir Austin rode away to set his house in order, while Desire turned fromalchemy to make her wedding garments. 

The entries during this interval were sweetly gentle and feminine. HerRose of Jerusalem fragrance was all her own, and was kept so, but shemade less-rare essences and sold them through a pedlar in order to buyfine linen and brocade for a trousseau not designed to be worn in aPuritan village. She was happy and at rest in expectation. 

On her wedding day the destroying news fell. Sir Austin hid a weakspirit within a strong and handsome body. Away from Desire's glamour, back in New York, he had not broken his engagement to the heiress. Instead, he had married her on the day arranged before he met theclergyman's daughter. 

There was never again a connected record in the diary. Pages were tornout in places, entries were broken off, half-made. But the story Vere'sslow, steady voice conveyed to us was the one we knew; the one my Desirehad told to me the first night I slept in this house. The half-mad girlturned to her father's deadly books. Sir Austin died as his waxen imagedissolved before the fire, where the girl sat watching with mercilesshate. He died, raving and frothing, on her door-sill. She never saw himafter the day he rode away to prepare for their marriage. She set openher window that she might hear his progress to that hard death, butnever deigned to turn her glance upon him. 

The clergyman was dead, now; of shame, or perhaps of terror at the childhe had reared. The girl was alone. 

The diary grew wilder, with gaps of weeks where there were no entries. More frequently, pages were missing and paragraphs obliterated by thereddish blotches like rust or blood. There were accounts of weird, half-told experiments ranging through the three degrees of magic setforth by Talmud and Cabala. She wrote of legions of kingdoms betweenearth and heaven, and the twelve unearthly worlds of Plato. She alludedto a Barrier between men and other orders of beings, beyond which dweltThose whom the magicians of old glimpsed after long toil andincantation. 

"Those of whom Vertabied, the Armenian, says: '_Their orders differ fromone another in situation and degree of glory, just as there aredifferent ranks among men, though they are all of one nature. _' Theycannot cross nor overthrow this Wall, nor can man alone; but if they andman join together----One there beyond whispers to me of power, splendor, victory----"

Days later, there was entered a passage of mad triumph and terror. TheBarrier was broken through. Out of the breach issued the One whom shehad invited to her silver lamps; colossal, formless, whose approachfroze blood and spirit. Eyes of unspeakable meaning glared across thedark, whispers unbearable to humanity beat upon her intelligence andnamed her comrade. 

Now as Vere read this, I felt again that quiver of the house or air hehad likened to an earth shock and held responsible for the fall of thewillow tree that had destroyed our hope of escape by automobile. Ilooked at my companions and saw no evidence of anyone having noticedwhat I had seemed to feel. Vere indeed was pale; while Phillida, who satbeside him, was highly flushed with excitement and wonder as shelistened. Desire had not stirred in her chair, except to bend her headso her face was shaded by the loosened richness of her hair. Seeing themso undisturbed, I kept silence. A storm might be approaching, but I madeno pretense to myself of believing that shock either thunder orearthquake. 

The tone of the diary altered rapidly. At first, the unknown from beyondthe wall appalled the woman only by its unhuman strangeness, therepugnance of flesh and blood for its loathly neighborhood. Fearemanated from its presence, seen yet unseen, a blackness moving in theblack of night when it visited her. Yet she had courage to endure thoseawful colloquies. She listened. She strove by the spell and incantationto subdue This to her service, as the demon Orthone served the Lord ofCorasse, as Paracelsus was served by his Familiar, or Gyges by thespirit of his ring. 

Alas for the sorceress, misguided by legend and fantasy! She had evokedno phantom, but a fact actual as nature always is even if nature is nothumanly understood. The Thing was real. 

The awe of the magician became the stricken panic of the woman. She hadunloosed what she could not bind. She had called a servant, and gained amaster. Gone forever were the dreams of power and splendor and triumph. Now she learned that only pure magic can discharge the spirits it hassummoned, nor could a murderess attain that lofty art. 

We were given a glimpse of a frantic girl crouched in the uselesspentagram traced on the floor for her protection, covering her beautywith the cloak of her hair against the eyes that burned upon her betweenthe overturned silver lamps. 

A deepening horror gathered about the house of Mistress Desire Michell. The old dame who had been the girl's nurse and caretaker fled the placeand fell into mumbling dotage in a night. No child would come near thegarden, though fruit and nuts rotted away where they dropped fromoverripeness. No neighbor crossed the doorstep where Sir Austin haddied. She lived in utter solitude by day. By night she waged hideousbattle against her Visitor; using woman's cunning, essaying everyexpedient and art her books suggested to her desperate need. 

With each conflict, her strength and resource waned, while That whichshe held at bay knew no weariness. Time was not, for it, nor change ofpurpose. 

"I faint, I fail!" she wrote. "The Sea of Dread breaks about my feet. Itis midnight. The pentagram fades from the floor--the nine lamps die--thebreath of the One at the casement is upon me----"

Vere stopped. 

"A handful of pages have been torn out here, " he stated. "The next entrythat I can read is in the middle of a stained page, and must beconsiderably later on. "

Phillida made an odd little noise like a whimper, clutching at hissleeve. The third shock for which I had been waiting shuddered throughthe house, this time distinctly enough for all to feel. A gust of windwent through the wet trees outside like a gasp. 

"Ethan, what was that?" she stammered. "Oh, I'm afraid! CousinRoger----?"

I had no voice to answer her. In my ears was the rush and surge of thatsea whose waters had gripped me in the past night. I felt the icydeath-tide hiss around me in its first returning wave, rise to my knee'sheight, then sink away down its unearthly beach. What I had dimly knownall day, underlying Vere's sturdy cheerfulness and our plans andefforts, was the truth. Through those intervening hours of daylight Ihad remained my enemy's prisoner, bound on that shore we both knew well, until It pleased or had power to return and finish with me. No doubt Itwas governed by laws, as we are. 

As before, the cold struck a paralysis across my senses. Vere'sreassurance sounded faint and distant. 

"The thunder is getting closer, " he said. "That was a storm wind, allright! Would you rather go upstairs and lie down, and not hear any moreof this stuff tonight?"

"No! Oh, no! I could not bear to be alone, " she refused. "Just, just goon, dear. Of course it is the coming storm that makes the room so cold. "

He put his left arm around her as she nestled against him. His righthand held the diary flattened on the table under the light. 

"The next entry is just one line in the middle of a page whereeverything else is blotted out, " Vere repeated. "It reads: 'The child isa week old today. '"

The wave crashed foaming in tumult up the strand, flowing higher, drenching me in cold sharp as fire. The tide rose faster tonight. Thesilence that held the others dumb before the significance of that lastsentence covered my silence from notice. Desire's face was quite hidden;lamplight and firelight wavered and gleamed across her bent head. Iwanted to arise and go to her, to take her hands and tell her to havepatience and courage. But when this wave ebbed, my strength drained awaywith the receding water. Moreover, the darkness curdled and moved beyondthe window opposite me. The curtains hung between were no bar to myvision, as the light and presence of my companions were no bar to theThing that kept rendezvous with me. Since last night, we were nearer toone another. 

A breath of chill foulness crept across the pungent odor of the burningapple-log in the fireplace. A whisper spoke to my intelligence. 

"Man conquered by me, fall down before me. Beg my forbearance. Beg lifeof me--and take the gift!"

"No, " my thought answered Its. 

"You die, Man. "

"All men die. "

"Not as they die who are mine. "

"I am not yours. You kill me, as a wild beast might. But I am not yours;not dying nor dead am I yours. "

"Would you not live, pygmy?"

"Not as your pensioner. "

The logs on the hearth crackled and sank down with a soft rustle, burnedthrough to a core of glowing red. Phillida spoke with a hushed urgency, drawing still closer to her husband, so that her forehead rested againsthis shoulder. 

"Go on, Ethan. Finish and let us be done. "

Vere bent his head above the book on the table to obey her. Across thedark I suddenly saw the Eyes glare in upon him. 

"On the next page, the writing begins again, " he said. "It says:

"'I am offered the kingdoms of earth. But I crave that kingdom of myselfwhich I cast away. The child is sent to England. The circle is drawn. The names are traced and the lamps filled. Tonight I make the lastessay. There remains untried one mighty spell. This Mystery----'"

A clap of thunder right over the house overwhelmed the reader's voice. Phillida screamed as a violent wind volleyed through the place with acrashing of doors and shutters, upstairs and down. The diary was rippedfrom beneath Vere's hand and hurled straight to the center of that nestof fire formed by the settling of the logs. A long tongue of flameleaped high in the chimney as the spread leaves of the book caught andflared, fanned by wind and draft. Vere sprang up, but Phillida'sclinging arms delayed him. When he reached the fire-tongs there wasnothing to rescue except a charring mass half-way toward ashes. 

He turned toward me, perhaps at last surprised by my immobility. 

"I am sorry, Mr. Locke, " he apologized. 

Desire had started up with the others when the sudden uproar of thestorm burst upon them. Now she cried out, breaking Vere's excuse of theloss. Her small face blanched, she ran a few steps toward me. 

"It has come! He will die--he is dying. Look, look!"

CHAPTER XX

 "Behold! Where are their abodes? Their places are not, even as though they had not been. " --TOMB OF KING ENTEF. 

Desire Michell was beside me, and I could not rise or answer her. Shebent over me, so that the Rose of Jerusalem fragrance inundated me anddrove back the sickening air that was the breath of our enemy. 

"Let me go, " she sobbed, her head beside my head. "If you can hear me, listen and leave me as It wills. You know now that I belong to It byheritage? You know why we can never be together as you planned? Try tofeel horror of me. Put me away from you. No evil can come to me unless Iseek evil. But It will not suffer you to take me. Live, dear Roger, andlet me go. "

"Yield to me, Man, what you may not keep, " the whisper of the Thingfollowed after her voice. "Would you take the witch-child to yourhearth? Cast her off; and taste my pardon. "

"Can you hear, Roger? Roger, let me go. "

With an effort terrible to make as death to meet, I broke from theparalysis that chained me. As from the drag of a whirlpool, I toremyself from the tide-clutch, from the will of the Thing, from the numbweakness upon me. For a moment I thrust back the hand at my throat. Istood up and drew Desire up with me in my arms, both of us reeling withmy unsteadiness. 

"I do not give you up, " I said, my speech hoarse and difficult. "I claimyou, now, and after. And my claim is good, because I pay. "

Desire exclaimed something. What, I do not know. Her voice was lost inthe triumphant conviction that I was right. She was free, and thefreedom was my gift to her. I was not vanquished, but victor. The life Ipaid was not a penalty, but a price. 

Her face was uplifted to mine as she clung to me; then my weight glidedthrough her arms and I fell back in my chair. 

I was alone amid blackness and desolation that poured past me like thewind above the world. 

 * * * * *

For the last time, I opened my eyes on the gray shore at the foot of theBarrier. I, pygmy indeed, stood again before the colossal wall whosepalisades reared up beyond vision and stretched away beyond vision oneither side. 

I was alone here. No whisper of taunt or menace, no presence of horrortroubled me. Opposite me, the Breach that split the cliff showed as ashadowed cañon, empty except of dread. Far out behind me the sea thatwas like no sea of earth gathered itself beneath its eternal mists as atidal wave draws and gathers. With folded arms I stood there, waitingfor the returning surge of mighty waters to overwhelm me in their flood. I waited in awe and solemn expectancy, beyond fear or hope. 

But now I became aware of a new doubleness of experience. Here on theFrontier, I was between the worlds, yet I also saw the room in the houseleft behind. I saw myself as an unconscious body reclined in a chairbeside the hearth. Desire Michell knelt on the floor beside me, herhands grasping my arms, her gaze fixed on my face, her hair spilling itsshining lengths across my knees. Phillida was huddled in a chair, cryinghysterically. Vere apparently had been trying to force some stimulantupon the man who was myself, yet was not myself, for while I watched hereluctantly rose from bending above the figure and set a glass upon thetable. I echoed his sigh. Life was good. 

The sea behind me began to rush in from immeasurable distances. The roarof the waters' thunderous approach blended with the heat and flash ofstorm all about the house into which I looked. 

"He dies, " Desire spoke, her voice level and calm. "Has it not been sowith all who loved the daughters of my race these two centuries past?Yet never did one of those die as he dies--not for passion, but forprotection of the woman--not as a madman or one ignorant, but facingthat which was not meant for man to face, his eyes beating back theintolerable Eyes. Oh, glory and grief of mine to have seen this!"

Phillida cowered lower in her chair, burying her face in the cushions. But Vere abruptly stood erect, his fine dark face lifted and set. Justso some ancestors of his might have risen in a bleak New Englandmeeting-house when moved powerfully to wrestle with evil in prayer. Butit is doubtful if any Maine deacon ever addressed his Deity as Vereappealed to his. 

"Almighty, we're in places we don't understand, " he spoke simply as to afriend within the room, his earnest, drawling speech entirely natural. "But You know them as You do us. If things have got to go this way, why, we'll make out the best we can. But if they don't, and we're justblundering into trouble, please save Roger Locke and this poor girl. Because we know You can. Amen. "

Now at this strange and beautiful prayer--or so it seemed to me--a rayof blinding light cleaved up from where Vere stood, like a shot arrowspeeding straight through house and night into inconceivable space. Thenthe room vanished from my sight as the great wave burst out of the mistupon me. 

I went down in a smother of ghastly snarling floods cold as space iscold. Something fled past me up the strand, shrieking inhuman passion;the Eyes of my enemy glared briefly across my vision. 

One last view I glimpsed of that dread Barrier, amid the tumult andwelter of my passing. The breach was closed! Unbroken, majestic, theenormous Wall stood up inviolate. 

CHAPTER XXI

 "Fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. " --COWPER. 

The uproar of rushing waters was still in my ears. But I was in my chairbefore the hearth in the living room of the farmhouse, and the noise wasthe din of a tempest outside. 

Opposite me, Phillida and Desire were clinging together, watching mewith such looks of gladness and anxiety that I felt myself abashedbefore them. Bagheera, the cat, sat on the table beside the lamp, yelloweyes blinking at each flash and rattle of lightning and thunder, whilehe sleeked his recently wetted fur. Wondering where that wet had comefrom, I discovered presently that the fire was out, and the hearthdrenched with soot-stained water. I looked toward the windows, fromwhich the curtains had been drawn aside. Rain poured glistening down thepanes, but the clean storm was empty of horror. 

"Drink some of this, Mr. Locke, " urged Vere, whose arm was about me. "Sit quiet, and I guess you'll be all right in a few moments. "

I took the advice. Strength was flowing into me, as inexplicably as ithad flowed away from me a while past. How can I describe the certaintyof life that possessed me? The assurance was established, singularlyenough, for all of us. None of my companions asked, and I myself neverdoubted whether the danger might return. The experience was complete, and closed. Moreover, already the Thing that had been our enemy, thehorror that had been Its atmosphere, the mystery that hauntedDesire--all were fading into the past. The phantoms were exorcised, andthe house purified of fear. 

But there was something different from ordinary storm in this tempest. The tumult of rain and wind linked another, deeper roar with theirs. Thehouse quivered with a steady trembling like a bridge over which a trainis passing. Pulling myself together I turned to Vere. 

"What is happening outdoors?" I asked. 

"The cloudburst was too much for the dam, " he answered regretfully. "Itwent off with a noise like a big gun, a while back. I expect the lake isflooding the whole place and messing up everything from our cellar tothe chickenhouse. Daylight is due pretty soon, now, and the storm isdying down. We'll be able to add up the damage, after a bit. "

"The water came down the chimney and drowned Bagheera, " Phillida bravelytried to summon nonchalance. "Isn't it lucky you and Desire could notget started in the car, after all? Fancy being out in that!"

Desire Michell steadied her soft lips and gave her quota to the shelterof commonplace speech we raised between ourselves and emotions toorecently felt. 

"It was like the tropical storms in Papua, where I lived until thisyear, " she said. "Once, one blew down the mission house. "

Vere's weather prediction proved quite right. In an hour the storm hadexhausted itself, or passed away to other places. Sunrise came with averitable glory of crimson and gold, blazing through air washed limpidlypure by the rain. The east held a troop of small clouds red asflamingoes flying against a shining sky; last traces of our tempest. 

We stood on the porch together to survey an unfamiliar scene in the rosylight. Water overlay lawns and paths, so the house stood in a wide, shallow lake whose ripples lapped around the white cement steps and thepillars of the porte-cochère. Phillida's Pekin ducks floated and fed onthis new waterway as contentedly as upon their accustomed pastures. Small objects sailed on the flood here and there; Bagheera's milk-panfrom the rear veranda bobbed amidst a fleet of apples shaken down in theorchard, while some wooden garden tools nudged a silk canoe-cushion. 

In contrast to all this aquatic prospect, where the real lake had beenthere now lay some acres of ugly, oozing marsh; its expanse dotted withthe bodies of dead water-creatures and such of Vere's young trout as hadnot been swept away by the outpouring flood. The dam was a mere pile ofdébris through which trickled a stream bearing no resemblance to thesparkling waterfall of yesterday. Already the sun's rays were drawing arank, unwholesome vapor from the long-submerged surface. 

We contemplated the ruin for a while, without words. 

"Poor Drawls!" Phillida sighed at length. "All your work just rubbedout!"

"Never mind, Vere, " I exclaimed impulsively. "We will put it all back inthe same shape as it was. "

But even as I spoke, I felt an odd shock of uneasiness and recoil frommy own proposition. I did not want the lake to be there again; or tohear the unaccountable sounds to which it gave birth and the varyingfall of the cataract over the dam. Did the others share my repugnance? Iseemed to divine that they did. Even the impetuous Phil did not breakout in welcome of my offer. Desire, who had smoothed her sober graydress in some feminine fashion and stood like Marguerite or Melisandewith a great braid over either shoulder, moved as if to speak, thenchanged her intention. A faint distress troubled her expression. 

As usual, Vere himself quietly lifted us out of unrest. 

"I'm not sure that couldn't be bettered, Mr. Locke, " he demurred. "Thatis if you liked, of course! That marsh could be cleaned up and drainedinto pretty rich land, I guess. And down there beyond the barn, on theother side where the creek naturally widens out into a kind of basin, Ishould think might be the spot for a smaller, cleaner lake. "

"Doesn't it seem to you, Ethan, " I said, "that we have progressed ratherpast the _Mr. Locke_ stage?"

A little later, when Desire and I were alone on the porch, we walked tothe end nearest the vanished lake. Or rather, I led her to a swingingcouch there, and sat down beside her. 

"Point out the path down the hill by which you used to come, " I asked ofher. 

She shook her head. There are no words to paint how she looked in theclear morning, except that she seemed its sister. 

"It is only the end of a path that matters, " she said. "Look instead atthe marsh. Do you see nothing there stranger than a path through thewoods even when trodden by a wilful woman?"

Following her lifted finger, I saw a series of long mounds out there inthe muddy floor not far from the dam. Not high, two or three feet atmost, the mounds formed an irregular square of considerable area. 

"The old house!" I exclaimed. 

"It was set on fire by the second Desire Michell one night deep inwinter. Her father built this house of yours and put in the dam thatcovered the ruins with water. I think he hoped to wash away the horrorupon the place. "

"I know so little of your history. "

"You can imagine it. " She turned her head from me. "The first child cameback from England when it was a man grown, and claimed the house andname of the first Desire. He settled and married here. For twogenerations only sons were born to the Michells. I do not know if theDark One came to them. I believe it did, but they were hard, austere menwho beat off evil. Then, a daughter was born. She looked like the firstDesire and she was--not good. She was a scandal to the family. Shelistened to It----! The tradition is that she set fire to the houseafter a terrible quarrel with her people, but herself perished by somemiscalculation. There were no more girls born for another while afterthat. Not until my father's time. He had a sister who resembled the twoDesires of the past. My grandfather brought her up in harshness andausterity, holding always before her the wickedness to which she wasborn. Yet it was no use. She fled from his house with a man no one knew, and died in Paris after a life of great splendor and heartlessness. Everyone who loved the Desires suffered. That is why I--covered myselffrom--you. "

I took her hand, so small a thing to hold and feel flutter in mine. 

"But what of me, Desire? The darkness covered no beauty in me, but adefect. You never saw me until last night and now in the morning. Nowthat you know, can you bear with a man who--limps? You, so perfect?"

She turned toward me. Her kohl-dark eyes, vivid as a summer noon, openedto my anxious scrutiny. 

"But I have seen you often, " she said, the heat of confession bright oncheek and lip. "I never meant you to know, but now----! After the firsttime you spoke to me so kindly and gayly--I was so very sorrowfullyalone--and the convent was so dull! My father's field-glasses were in mytrunk. "

"Desire?"

"I fear I have no vocation for a nun. I--there is a huge rock half-waydown the hill with a clear view of this place. I have spent hours there, watching these lawns and verandas, and the things you all did. It allseemed so amusing and, and happy. You see, where I lived there werealmost no white people except my father and a priest at the Catholicmission. So I learned to know Phillida and Mr. Vere and----"

"Then, all this time, Desire----"

"The glasses brought you very close, " she whispered. "I knew you bynight and by day. "

CHAPTER XXII

 "Life hath its term, the assembly is dispersed, And we have not described Thee from the first. " --GULISTAN. 

I have come to the end of this narrative and with the end, I come towhat people of practical mind may call its explanation. Of the four ofus who were joined in living through the events of that summer, my wifeand I and Ethan Vere agree in one belief, while Phillida holds theopinion of her father, the Professor. I think Bagheera, the cat, mightbe added to our side also, if his testimony was available. 

The press reports of the cloudburst and flood brought the Professor upto Connecticut to verify with his own eyes his daughter's safety. AuntCaroline did not come with him, but I may here set down that she didcome later. They found their son-in-law by no means what theirforebodings menaced, so reconciled themselves at last to the marriage;to Phillida's abiding joy. 

But first the little Professor arrived alone, three days after thestorm. Characteristically, he had sent no warning of his coming, so noone met him at the railway station. He arrived in one of those curiousproducts of a country livery stable known as a rig, driven by a localreprobate whom no prohibition could sober. 

I shall never forget the incredulous rapture with which Phillidawelcomed him, nor the pride with which she presented Vere. 

The damages to the place were already being repaired, although weeks ofwork would be needed to restore a condition of order and make thechanges we planned. The automobile had been disentangled from thewreckage of garage and willow tree and towed away to receive expertattention. We were awaiting the arrival of the new car I had ordered forthe honeymoon tour Desire and I were soon to take. Phillida had declaredtwo weeks shopping a necessary preliminary to the wedding of a bride whowas to live in New York "and meet everybody. " Nor would I have shortenedthe pretty orgy into which the two girls entered, transforming mysorceress into a lady of the hour; happiness seeming to me rather to besavored than gulped. 

Needless to say, there was no more talk of the convent whose iron gateswere to have closed between the last Desire Michell and the world. Shehad been directed there by the priest whose island mission was near herfather's. In her solitude and ignorance of life, the sisterhood seemedto offer a refuge in which to keep her promise to her father. But shehad to learn the principles of the Church she was about to adopt, andduring that period of delay I had come to the old house. 

On the second day of his visit, we told all the story to the Professor. We could not have told Aunt Caroline, but we told him. 

"It is perfectly simple, " he pronounced at the end. "Interesting, evenunique in points, but simple of explanation. "

"And what may be the explanation?" I inquired with scepticism. 

"Marsh gas, " he replied triumphantly. "Have none of you young peopleever considered the singular emanations from swamps and marshes whererotting vegetation underlies shallow water? Phillida, I am astonishedthat you did not enlighten your companions on this point. You, at least, have been carefully educated, not in the light froth of modern music andart, but in the rudiments of science. I do not intend to wound yourfeelings, Roger!"

"I am not wounded, sir, " I retorted. "Just incredulous!"

"Ah?" said the Professor, with the bland superiority of his tribe. "Well, well! Yet even you know something of the evils attending peoplewho live in low, swampy areas; malaria, ague, fevers. In the tropics, these take the form of virulent maladies that sweep a man from earth ina few hours. Your lake _was_ haunted, so was the house that once stoodin its basin, as some vague instinct strove to warn the generations ofMichells as well as you. Haunted by emanations of some powerful form ofmarsh gas given forth more plentifully at night, which lowered the heartaction and impeded the breathing of one drawing the poison into hislungs through hours of sleep, producing--nightmare. Science has by nomeans analyzed all the possibilities of such phenomena. "

"Nightmare!" I cried. "Do you mean to account by nightmare for the wideand repeated experiences that twice brought me to the verge of death?And Desire? What of her knowledge of that same nightmare? What of thelegend of her family so exactly coinciding with all I felt? And why didnot Phillida and Ethan suffer the nightmare with me?"

He held up a lean hand. 

"Gently, gently, Roger! Consider that of all the household you aloneslept in the side of the house toward the lake. I know that you alwayshave your windows open day and night--a habit that used to cause greatannoyance to your Aunt Caroline when you were a boy. Thus you wereexposed to the full effect of the water gases. That you did not feel theeffects every night I attribute to differences in the wind, that fromsome directions would blow the fumes away from the house, thus relievingyou. I gather from your account that the phenomena were most pronouncedin close, foggy weather, when the poisonous air was atmospherically helddown to the earth. You have spoken of miasmic mists that hung below thelevel of the tree-tops. When Mr. Vere experienced a similar unease anddepression, he was on the shore of the lake at dawn after precisely sucha close, foggy night as I have described as most dangerous. The symptomsconfirm this theory. You say you awakened on each occasion with a senseof suffocation. Your heart labored, your limbs were cold and mindunnaturally depressed, owing to slow circulation of the blood. You werea man asphyxiated. After each attack you were more sensitive to thenext, as a malaria patient grows worse if he remains in the swampdistricts. It is remarkable that you did not guess the truth from thesmell of decaying vegetation and stagnant damp which you admitaccompanied the seizures! However, you did not; and in your conditionthe last three days of continuous fog brought on two attacks that nearlyproved fatal. Now as to the character of your hallucinations, and theiragreement with the young lady's ideas. That is a trifle more involveddiscussion, yet simple, simple!"

He put the tips of his fingers together and surveyed us with the benigncondescension of one instructing a class of small children. 

"The first night that you passed in your newly purchased house, Roger, you accidentally encountered Miss Michell; or she did you!" He smiledhumorously. "While your feelings were excited by the unusual episode, the strange surroundings and the dark, she related to you a wild legendof witchcraft and monsters. Later, when you suffered your first attackof marsh-gas poisoning, your consequent hallucination took form from thestory you had just heard. Later conversations with your mysterious ladyfixed the idea into an obsession. Recurrent dreams are a commonphenomenon even in healthy persons. In this case, no doubt the exactrepetition of the physical sensations of miasmic poisoning tended toreproduce in your mind the same sequence of ideas or semi-deliriousimaginings. These were of course varied or distorted somewhat on eachoccasion, influenced by what you had been hearing or reading in advanceof them. This mental condition became more and more confirmed as yousteeped yourself more deeply in legendary lore and also--pardon me--inthe morbid fancies of the young lady; whose ghostly visits in the darkand whose increasing interest for you put a further bias upon yourthoughts. "

"What were the noises I heard from the lake, and the shocks we allfelt?" I demanded. 

He nodded amiably toward Vere. 

"Mr. Vere has mentioned the large bubbles which formed and burst on thesurface of the lake. That is a common manifestation of ordinary marshgas. Possibly the singular and unknown emanation that took place atnight came to the surface in the form of a bubble or bubbles huge enoughto produce in bursting the smacking sound of which you speak. But I aminclined to another theory, after a walk I took about your place thismorning. When you put up your cement dam instead of the old log affairthat held back only a part of the stream, you made a greater depth andbulk of water in the swamp basin than it has contained these many years, if ever. As a result, I believe the sloping mud basin began to sliptoward the dam. Oh, very gradually! Probably not stirring for weeks at atime. Just a yielding here, a parting there, until the cloudburstprecipitated the disaster. You had, my dear Roger, a miniaturelandslide, which would account for sounds of shifting mud and water inyour lake, and for the shocks or trembling of your house when the earthmovements occurred. "

The rest of us regarded one another. I think Vere might have spoken, ifhe had not been unwilling to mar Phillida's contentment by anyappearance of dispute with her father. 

"It is very cleverly worked out, sir, " I conceded. "But how do youexplain that Desire knew what I experienced with the Thing from theBarrier, if my experiences were merely delirious dreams?"

"I have not yet understood that she did know, " said the Professor dryly. "She put the suggestions into your head; innocently, of course. When youafterward compared notes and found they agreed, you cried 'miraculous'!How is that, Miss Michell? Did you actually know what Roger experiencedin these excursions before he told you of them?"

Desire gazed at him with her meditative eyes, so darkly lovely, yetnever quite to lose their individual difference from any other lovelyeyes I have ever seen. The eyes, I thought then and still think, of onewho has seen more, or at least seen into farther spaces, than most oftreadmill-trotting humanity. She wore one of the new frocks for whichPhillida and she had already made a flying trip to town; a mostsophisticated frock from Fifth Avenue, with frivolous French shoes tocorrespond. Her hair of a Lorelei was demurely coiled and wound abouther little head. Yet some indescribable atmosphere closed her delicatelyaround, an impalpable wall between her and the commonplace. Even thedesiccated, material Professor was aware of this influence and took offhis spectacles uneasily, wiped them and put them on again to contemplateher. 

"I am not sure, " she answered him with careful candor. "I believe that Icould always tell when the Dark One had been with him. I could feelthat, here, " she touched her breast. "I knew what its visits were like, because I was brought up to know by my father and was told the historyof the three Desire Michells. My father had studied deeply and taughtme--I shall not tell anyone all he taught me! I do not want to think ofthose things. Some of them I have told to Roger. Some of them are quiteharmless and pleasant, like the secret formula for making the Rose ofJerusalem perfume; which has virtues not common, as Roger can say whohas felt it revive him from faintness. But there are places into whichwe should not thrust ourselves. It is like--like suicide. One's mindmust be perverted before certain things can be done. And that is thetrue sin--to debase one's soul. All men discover and learn of scienceand the universe by honest duty and effort is good, is lofty and leadsup. Nothing is forbidden to us. But if we turn aside to the low doorwhich only opens to crime and evil purpose, we step outside. I amunskilful; I do not express myself well. "

"Very well, young lady, " the Professor condescended. "Unfortunately, your theories are wild mysticism. The veritable fiend that has plaguedthe house of Michell is the mischievous habit of rearing each generationfrom childhood to a belief in doom and witchcraft. A child will believeanything it is told. Why not, when all things are still equallywonderful to it? Let me point out that your theory also contradictsitself, since Roger certainly did not enter upon any path of crime, yethe met your unearthly monster. "

"Because he chose to link his fate with mine, who am linked by hereditywith the Dweller at the Frontier, " she said earnestly. "He was in theposition of one who enters the lair of a wild beast to bring out avictim who is trapped there. It may cost that rescuer his life. Rogernearly paid his life. But he mastered It and took me away from It, because he was not afraid and not seeking his own good. I never imaginedanyone so brave and strong and unselfish as Roger. I suppose it isbecause he thinks of others instead of himself, which gives thestrongest kind of strength. "

"The Thing nearly had me, though, " I hastily intervened to spare my ownmodesty. "And It did have me worse than afraid!"

"I seem to be arguing against an impenetrable obstinacy, " snapped theProfessor. "Do you, Roger, who were educated under my own eye, in myhouse, have the effrontery to tell me that you believe Miss Michell isdescended from the union of an evil spirit and a human being; as theEastern legends claim for Saladin the Great?"

"Your own theory, sir, being----?" I evaded. 

"There is no theory about the matter, " he declared. "Excuse me, MissMichell! The child was undoubtedly Sir Austin's son. Which accounts forthe madness of the first Desire Michell. "

We were all silent for a while. Whatever thoughts each held remainedunvoiced. 

"Come, Phillida, you take my sane point of view, I hope?" the Professorfinally challenged his daughter, with a glance of scorn and compassionat the rest of our group. "You observe that I have explained every pointraised, Miss Michell's testimony being of the vaguest?"

"Yes, Papa, " Phillida agreed hesitatingly. "I do believe you have solvedthe whole problem. Only, if Cousin Roger was suffering from marsh-gaspoisoning last night when he seemed to be dying, I do not quite see whyEthan's prayer should have cured him. "

The Professor was momentarily posed. He looked disconcerted, took offhis glasses and put them on again, and at length muttered somethingabout storm-wind dissipating the miasma in the air and events being merecoincidence. 

 * * * * *

The house was never again visited by the Dark Presence. Phantom orfancy, the horror was gone as if it never had brooded about the place. Desire Locke is a fatal companion only to my heart. 

But whether all this is so because the lake is drained and the Shetlandpony of a young Vere browses over the green pasture that was once amiasmic swamp; or whether it is so for more subtle, wilder reasons, noone can say. I, recalling that colossal Barrier I visioned as closed anda certain cleaving arrow of light, must at least call the coincidenceamazing. 

As I have said, my wife and I, Ethan Vere and Bagheera the cat have anunderstanding between us.