tline of the table which should have been hidden by the man's
figure, and through the hat I could see the handle of the French
window.

As I stood motionless there, solitary under the glow of the electric
light with this fearful visitor, I began to wish that it would move. I
wanted to face it--to meet its gaze with my gaze, eye to eye, and will
against will. The battle between us must start at once, I thought, if
I was to have any chance of victory, for moment by moment I could feel
my resolution, my manliness, my mere physical courage, slipping away.

But the apparition did not stir. Impassive, remorseless, sinister, it
was content to wait, well aware that all suspense was in its favor.
Then I said to myself that I would cross the room, and so attain my
object. I made a step--and drew back, frightened by the sound of a
creaking board. Absurd! But it was quite a minute before I dared to
make another step. I had meant to walk straight across to the other
door, passing in my course close by the occupied chair. I did not do
so; I kept round by the wall, creeping on tiptoe and my eye never
leaving the figure in the chair. I did this in spite of myself, and
the manner of my action was the first hint of an ultimate defeat.

At length I stood in the doorway leading to the bedroom. I could feel
the perspiration on my forehead and at the back of my neck. I fronted
the inscrutable white face of the thing which had once been Lord
Clarenceux, the lover of Rosetta Rosa; I met its awful eyes, dark,
invidious, fateful. Ah, those eyes! Even in my terror I could read in
them all the history, all the characteristics, of Lord Clarenceux.
They were the eyes of one capable at once of the highest and of the
lowest. Mingled with their hardness was a melting softness, with their
cruelty a large benevolence, with their hate a pitying tenderness,
with their spirituality a hellish turpitude. They were the eyes of two
opposite men, and as I gazed into them they reconciled for me the
conflicting accounts of Lord Clarenceux which I had heard from
different people.

But as far as I was concerned that night the eyes held nothing but
cruelty and disaster; though I could detect in them the other
qualities, those qualities were not for me. We faced each other, the
apparition and I, and the struggle, silent and bitter as the grave,
began. Neither of us moved. My arms were folded easily, but my nails
pressed in the palms of my clenched hands. My teeth