"I gasped. Something in his voice or manner turned my blood into ice.

"'That's the real attraction,' he went on. 'But if this continues one of
us will have to leave, you know.'

"I positively could not find a word to say in reply. The channels of
speech dried up within me. I simply stared and wondered what he would
say next. I watched him in a sort of dream, and as far as I can
remember, he asked me to promise to call him sooner another time, and
then began to walk round the room, uttering strange sounds, and making
signs with his arms and hands until he reached the door. Then he was
gone in a second, and I had closed and locked the door behind him.

"After this, the Smith adventure drew rapidly to a climax. It was a week
or two later, and I was coming home between two and three in the morning
from a maternity case, certain features of which for the time being had
very much taken possession of my mind, so much so, indeed, that I passed
Smith's door without giving him a single thought.

"The gas jet on the landing was still burning, but so low that it made
little impression on the waves of deep shadow that lay across the
stairs. Overhead, the faintest possible gleam of grey showed that the
morning was not far away. A few stars shone down through the sky-light.
The house was still as the grave, and the only sound to break the
silence was the rushing of the wind round the walls and over the roof.
But this was a fitful sound, suddenly rising and as suddenly falling
away again, and it only served to intensify the silence.

"I had already reached my own landing when I gave a violent start. It
was automatic, almost a reflex action in fact, for it was only when I
caught myself fumbling at the door handle and thinking where I could
conceal myself quickest that I realised a voice had sounded close beside
me in the air. It was the same voice I had heard before, and it seemed
to me to be calling for help. And yet the very same minute I pushed on
into the room, determined to disregard it, and seeking to persuade
myself it was the creaking of the boards under my weight or the rushing
noise of the wind that had deceived me.

"But hardly had I reached the table where the candles stood when the
sound was unmistakably repeated: 'Help! help!' And this time it was
accompanied by what I can only describe as a vivid tactile
hallucination. I was touched: the _skin_ of my arm was clutched by
fingers.

"Some compelling force sent me