whisper which I am
certain was Smith speaking, though the sound did not seem to have come
to me through the door. It was close in my very ear, as though he stood
beside me, and it gave me such a start, that I clutched the banisters to
save myself from stepping backwards and making a clatter on the stairs.

"'There is nothing you can do to help me,'" it said distinctly, 'and you
will be much safer in your own room.'

"I am ashamed to this day of the pace at which I covered the flight of
stairs in the darkness to the top floor, and of the shaking hand with
which I lit my candles and bolted the door. But, there it is, just as it
happened.

"This midnight episode, so odd and yet so trivial in itself, fired me
with more curiosity than ever about my fellow-lodger. It also made me
connect him in my mind with a sense of fear and distrust. I never saw
him, yet I was often, and uncomfortably, aware of his presence in the
upper regions of that gloomy lodging-house. Smith and his secret mode of
life and mysterious pursuits, somehow contrived to awaken in my being a
line of reflection that disturbed my comfortable condition of ignorance.
I never saw him, as I have said, and exchanged no sort of communication
with him, yet it seemed to me that his mind was in contact with mine,
and some of the strange forces of his atmosphere filtered through into
my being and disturbed my equilibrium. Those upper floors became haunted
for me after dark, and, though outwardly our lives never came into
contact, I became unwillingly involved in certain pursuits on which his
mind was centred. I felt that he was somehow making use of me against my
will, and by methods which passed my comprehension.

"I was at that time, moreover, in the heavy, unquestioning state of
materialism which is common to medical students when they begin to
understand something of the human anatomy and nervous system, and jump
at once to the conclusion that they control the universe and hold in
their forceps the last word of life and death. I 'knew it all,' and
regarded a belief in anything beyond matter as the wanderings of weak,
or at best, untrained minds. And this condition of mind, of course,
added to the strength of this upsetting fear which emanated from the
floor below and began slowly to take possession of me.

"Though I kept no notes of the subsequent events in this matter, they
made too deep an impression for me ever to forget the sequence in which
they occurred.