The glacial atmosphere closed round him with the cold of death, and
a great rushing sound swept by overhead as though the ceiling had lifted
to a great height. He heard the door shut. Far away it sounded. He felt
lost, shelterless in the depths of his soul. Yet still he held out and
resisted while the climax of the fight came nearer and nearer.... He had
stepped into the stream of forces awakened by Pender and he knew that he
must withstand them to the end or come to a conclusion that it was not
good for a man to come to. Something from the region of utter cold was
upon him.

And then quite suddenly, through the confused mists about him, there
slowly rose up the Personality that had been all the time directing the
battle. Some force entered his being that shook him as the tempest
shakes a leaf, and close against his eyes--clean level with his face--he
found himself staring into the wreck of a vast dark Countenance, a
countenance that was terrible even in its ruin.

For ruined it was, and terrible it was, and the mark of spiritual evil
was branded everywhere upon its broken features. Eyes, face and hair
rose level with his own, and for a space of time he never could properly
measure, or determine, these two, a man and a woman, looked straight
into each other's visages and down into each other's hearts.

And John Silence, the soul with the good, unselfish motive, held his own
against the dark discarnate woman whose motive was pure evil, and whose
soul was on the side of the Dark Powers.

It was the climax that touched the depth of power within him and began
to restore him slowly to his own. He was conscious, of course, of
effort, and yet it seemed no superhuman one, for he had recognised the
character of his opponent's power, and he called upon the good within
him to meet and overcome it. The inner forces stirred and trembled in
response to his call. They did not at first come readily as was their
habit, for under the spell of glamour they had already been diabolically
lulled into inactivity, but come they eventually did, rising out of the
inner spiritual nature he had learned with so much time and pain to
awaken to life. And power and confidence came with them. He began to
breathe deeply and regularly, and at the same time to absorb into
himself the forces opposed to him, and to _turn them to his own
account_. By ceasing to resist, and allowing the deadly stream to pour
into him unopposed, he used the very power supp