d to the front door and was about to run into the
village to bring the vicar back to stay with us over the
week-end--besides I badly wanted to get away from those infernal gusts
of depression that swept the place. I did not scruple to keep to my
arrangements and told Price to make himself comfortable in the library
till my return. 'You'll find cigars, spirits--and _the_ spirit,' I said
jokingly. He nodded and laughed, and I jumped into the car, and quickly
put a mile between myself and--the bronze statue, for I was convinced
that Albertus of Cologne was connected in some unearthly way with the
face of Fear that often turned full on me.

"A half-hour afterwards I had pulled up at the vicarage, and was hanging
on to the bell which gave forth a mighty clamour. I was impatient to get
inside for a moment and behold the good genial face of the vicar.
Somehow, wherever the vicar went, he had a wonderful way of cheering
things up; his presence diffused an atmosphere of merriment. The door
suddenly opened and I was face to face with him:

"'My dear boy,' cried the vicar, 'I am glad to see you.'

"Then he stared at me in amazement. 'What have you done to yourself? You
have aged years since I saw you last week.'

"'Ah, I have things to tell you,' I said, 'Things that will make you
think I am off my head, but I shall convince you----'

"The vicar took my arm and walked me up to his sanctum, a fine spacious
chamber, beautified with that simplicity which throws a wonderful
dignity over all, and tends to show how in omission so much more
refinement is to be discovered than in ornament. Touches of the vicar's
keen discernment of those things which are worthy and noble were
revealed on every hand--knowledge of this sort is older than ten
thousand years. The room received one like a friend. The alcoves were
filled with well-bound books, there was a superb Persian carpet, old
gate-legged tables--oak was there everywhere; in the beams and the
shelves and the mighty writing desk. The servant had brought in a small
table with syphons and spirits, and had set a lamp upon it. 'Help
yourself,' said the vicar.

"I poured out a dose of whisky and was lifting it for a squirt of soda
when all at once I saw Fear; not apprehension, not foreboding, but
FEAR--the glass fell from my hand and my fingers sagged on the handle of
the syphon. I saw my reflection in a long glass, and my face was
bleached to an unhealthy dull whiteness.

"Suddenly like