that to me was an awful uncertainty, and I had to
bring him to Gertrude before the next Christmas Eve.

Away from her the skies were dark again, great heavy weights rested on
my heart, and my life seemed clogged. Still her love had nerved me to do
what I otherwise could never have done. It had nerved me to try; and so,
with her warm kiss burning on my lips, I hurried off to the great
metropolis without any definite idea why I was going.

CHAPTER XIV

GOD

For the next three months I was an atheist! These are easy words to
write, but terrible to realize. No one but those who know can tell the
terror of a man who has given up belief in an Eternal Goodness, in a
living God that cares for man.

I left Yorkshire with some little hope in my heart--the memory of
Gertrude's words was with me, cheering me during the long ride; but when
once alone in my rooms, nothing but a feeling of utter desolation
possessed my heart. The terrible night on the Yorkshire moors came back
again, the dark forbidding waters, the ghastly red hand, the gleaming
knife, the struggle--all were real. Did I kill him? I did not know.
Possibly I was a murderer in act, if not in thought. I could not bear to
think of it. Who can bear to think of having taken away a
fellow-creature's life? And he might be lying in Drearwater Pond even
then!

Then there was the terrible spell that this man had cast upon me. I felt
it clinging to every fibre of my being. I was not living a true life; I
was living a dual life. A power extraneous to myself, and yet possessing
me, made me a mere machine. As the days and weeks passed away things
became worse. I promised Gertrude to exert myself to find Kaffar, to set
her free from her promise to Voltaire; but I could not do it. His
command was upon me. I felt that it was ever in his mind that I should
not make any efforts, and I had to obey. And his power was evil, his
motives were fiendish, his nature was depraved. Still preachers talked
of a loving God, of the good being stronger than the evil. It could not
be.

"Try! Try! Resist! Resist! Struggle! Struggle!" said hope and duty and
love; and I tried, I resisted, I struggled. And still I was bound in
chains; still I was held by a mysterious occult power.

Then it ceased to feel to be a duty to rid Gertrude of Voltaire. Why
should I struggle and resist? Supposing I succeeded, was I any more fit
to be her husband than he? What was I? At best a poor weak creature, t