quitted the room it had lain upon the blotting-pad.

He stepped back towards the outer door.

Something fluttered past his face, and he turned in a mad panic. The
dreadful, bodiless hands groped in the darkness between himself and
the exit!

Vaguely it came home to him that the menace might be avoidable. He was
bathed in icy perspiration.

He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and placed his hands upon his
throat. Then he began to grope his way towards the closed door of his
bedroom.

Lowering his left hand, he began to feel for the doorknob. As he did
so, he saw--and knew the crowning horror of the night--that he had
made a false move. In retiring he had thrown away his last, his only,
chance.

The phantom hands, a yard apart and holding the silken cord stretched
tightly between them, were approaching him swiftly!

He lowered his head, and charged along the passage, with a wild cry.

The cord, stretched taut, struck him under the chin.

Back he reeled.

The cord was about his throat!

"God!" he choked, and thrust up his hands.

Madly, he strove to pluck the deadly silken thing from his neck. It
was useless. A grip of steel was drawing it tightly--and ever more
tightly--about him....

Despair touched him, and almost he resigned himself. Then,

"Rob! Rob! open the door!"

Dr. Cairn was outside.

A new strength came--and he knew that it was the last atom left to
him. To remove the rope was humanly impossible. He dropped his cramped
hands, bent his body by a mighty physical effort, and hurled himself
forward upon the door.

The latch, now, was just above his head.

He stretched up ... and was plucked back. But the fingers of his right
hand grasped the knob convulsively.

Even as that superhuman force jerked him back, he turned the knob--and
fell.

All his weight hung upon the fingers which were locked about that
brass disk in a grip which even the powers of Darkness could not
relax.

The door swung open, and Cairn swung back with it.

He collapsed, an inert heap, upon the floor. Dr. Cairn leapt in over
him.

* * * * *

When he reopened his eyes, he lay in bed, and his father was bathing
his inflamed throat.

"All right, boy! There's no damage done, thank God...."

"The hands!--"

"I quite understand. But _I_ saw no hands but your own, Rob; and if it
had come to an inquest I could not even have raised my voice against a
verdict of suicide!"

"But I-