inary shadow ... it is a thing of hellish terror,
and it comes from that infernal bronze statue.'

"Thence forward, as day followed day, the ghastly memory of the murder
of Price seemed to recede from my mind. I neither heard nor saw
anything, nor did that sense of the unseen presence lurking about the
house, come to me. I was beginning to hope that the spell of the bronze
statue had passed away for good. But one night after this interval I
again felt fear looking whitely on me again. If I were to describe all
the incidents of the next few days in their order my story would never
come to an end, and your patience would be exhausted. Wherever I went
after dark had fallen the shadow of the unseen followed me. I had a
passion for inviting people to stay with me, and I longed for
companionship of my kind which I had never known before; I was eager to
throw myself into the realities of life. The sense of a certain kind of
separateness is hell! Just you ask anybody who knows. I called on
people, lived in my car, and dined out on the slightest provocation. I
remember I spent one evening, (after my desperate efforts to find some
good Samaritan to bear me company), with a party of road-menders; I
helped them break up the stones and all that kind of thing. But after
they had packed up their tools and tea cans and bid me 'thanks and good
night,' I met fear on the homeward road--a shadow among shadows. It
would be almost impossible to describe the swerves that my mind took
from that time till the end. The presence of the Albertus Magnus filled
me by turns with dread, blind fear, an overshadowed sort of pleasure,
and utter hopelessness. I dare not have it taken away; and I knew that
its presence was driving me mad. The vicar told me that if I could make
up my mind to have the statue removed or destroyed, it might dispel all
my troubles. I ought to make an application to the authority on bronzes
at the British Museum, who would be only too pleased to accept it. An
application to escape the company of Albertus Magnus! A request that the
British Museum would graciously take over a bronze statue, the soul of
departed Ombos, and a blind terror that walked at twilight! The vicar's
proposal sent me into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter.

"I'd gone into the library one afternoon about four, as I had heavy
arrears of letter-writing to make up. It was surprising that I should
choose that room where Albertus Magnus towered in his corner--and