t me from all evil, especially from that dream on the Fall River
steamboat, the one that has tortured me so many nights.

I awakened suddenly to the knowledge that a terrible thing had happened,
an incredible thing. I was alone in my bedroom, _and yet I was not
alone_! I had escaped one degradation only to face another. I was awake,
fully awake; yet I was more abdominally tempted than ever I was in my
dreams. With all the strength of my soul I fought against the
aggressions of a real presence that--_that touched me!_ I cried out, I
struggled, I begged God to save me or else to let me die. And then
Seraphine came to me again in my agony.

But before she came the Voices sounded worse than ever, nearer about me
than ever. Why was I such a fool? Why was I so obstinate in resisting my
fate? Was I not Their appointed sacrifice? Why not be resigned to the
inevitable? Why not...? They laughed and fluttered close to me with
vile murmurings while I prayed against them with all my strength.

"_God of love, guard Thy child; God of power, save Thy child_," I
prayed.

A harsh, cruel voice broke in to tell me that Roberta Vallis was dead,
she died of terror because she had defied Them, as I had defied Them;
and, in three days, the Voice said that I, too, would die of terror.
Three days remained to me, three nights with my dream and a hideous
awakening, unless--

Then Seraphine opened my bedroom door and I sobbed in her arms a long
time before I could speak.

"Is--is Roberta dead?" I gasped.

She looked at me strangely and I knew it was true.

"Yes, dear," she answered gently, and tried to comfort me again, but it
was in vain.

"I have only three days to live, Seraphine," I said solemnly. "Three
days and three nights!"

Then I told her what the evil spirit had said, and she listened with
grave attention.

CHAPTER XV

DR. LEROY

There may now be presented, as bearing upon Mrs. Wells' strange illness,
a conversation which took place between Dr. William Owen and Dr. Edgar
Leroy, the psychic healer, on the evening following Penelope's entrance
into the Leroy sanitarium on Fortieth Street, just south of Bryant Park.

Owen began in his bluff, outspoken way: "Doctor, I have put into your
hands a lady I am very fond of, in spite of the fact that your theories
contradict everything I stand for. Not very complimentary, is it?--but I
may as well tell you the truth. Mrs. Wells has not improved under my
treatment, I admit