that the person of Smith's vision was withdrawing,
repulsed. She almost cried aloud to the invisible, but checked the
prayer, holding on, as it were, to her own sanity with both hands. Smith
writhed continually, moaning.

When at length she succeeded in telling him faintly that if he refused
this opportunity he must fall lower and lower and lose even the desire
for good, she found that her words had no longer any power to influence.
He had passed beyond into some region of outer darkness, where the
things of sense did not seem to penetrate, and where, if the actions of
his body were the expression of his soul, there was literally "wailing
and gnashing of teeth."

But Susannah hovered over him, not so much angry as pitiful, her own
agony of mere physical sympathy increasing. Terrified to be near him,
too compassionate to withdraw, she watched till at last the veins in his
hands and his face became swollen and knotted. She was unwilling to lose
the hope of her sole influence over him, and yet was about to call for
help, when almost suddenly he seemed to become conscious of his
surroundings again and shake himself free from the distress.

In a little while he was sitting on one of the chairs, wiping his purple
face and swollen eyes with the large silken pocket-handkerchief that was
one of the signs of his recent opulence. She saw the large ring on his
swollen finger gradually loosen, and the hand return to its normal shape
and colour. She felt convinced that his pulses had gone back to their
common flow, because his whole volition had returned peacefully to its
low ambitions and self-indulgence. She knew instinctively that it was
not thus opulent and fierce that he would have looked had he come out on
the other side of his temptation. She stood, outwardly patient, waiting
helpless till he should speak.

"Sit down, sister," he panted condescendingly. He was fanning himself
with the handkerchief now, as a man might who felt injured by undue
heat in the atmosphere.

Her refusal was concise and severe.

He looked at her boldly, with no apprehension now in his eyes, not even
the former conciliatory desire to receive her with fair words. She felt
appalled. Could it be that his angel in deserting him had deserted her?
Was there a devil strong enough to give her to him? It was perhaps only
his belief which overshadowed hers, it was perhaps only, as she thought,
a sickness of nerve but the impression that unseen personalities