impassivity upon
the girl. I trembled, all hope and all despair, for the issue. She
would not be vanquished. Her love was stronger than its hate; her love
knew not the name of fear. For a thousand nights, so it seemed, the
two remained thus, at grips, as it were, in a death-struggle. Then
with a reluctant gesture of abdication the ghost waved a hand; its
terrible features softened into a consent, and slowly it faded away.

As I lay there Rosa bent over me, and put her arms round my neck, and
I could feel on my face the caress of her hair, and the warm baptism
of her tears--tears of joy.

* * * * *

I raised her gently. I laid her on the sofa, and with a calm, blissful
expectancy awaited the moment when her eyes should open. Ah! I may not
set down here the sensation of relief which spread through my being as I
realized with every separate brain-cell that I was no longer a victim,
the doomed slave of an evil and implacable power, but a free man--free
to live, free to love, exempt from the atrocious influences of the
nether sphere. I saw that ever since the first encounter in Oxford
Street my existence had been under a shadow, dark and malign and always
deepening, and that this shadow was now magically dissipated in the
exquisite dawn of a new day. And I gave thanks, not only to Fate, but to
the divine girl who in one of those inspirations accorded only to
genius had conceived the method of my enfranchisement, and so nobly
carried it out.

Her eyelids wavered, and she looked at me.

"It is gone?" she murmured.

"Yes," I said, "the curse is lifted."

She smiled, and only our ardent glances spoke.

* * * * *

"How came you to think of it?" I asked.

"I was sitting in my room after dinner, thinking and thinking. And
suddenly I could see this room, and you, and the spectre, as plainly
as I see you now. I felt your terror; I knew every thought that was
passing in your brain, the anguish of it! And then, and then, an idea
struck me. I had never appealed in vain to Lord Clarenceux in
life--why should I not appeal now? I threw a wrap over my shoulders
and ran out. I didn't take a cab, I ran--all the way. I scarcely knew
what I was doing, only that I had to save you. Oh, Carl, you are
free!"

"Through you," I said.

She kissed me, and her kiss had at once the pure passion of a girl and
the satisfied solicitude of a mother.

"Take me home!" she whispered