end. Could I give them up?
I asked myself that, and I felt as if I could not. Through them, by means
of them, I felt as if I might attain to something wonderful--terrible
perhaps, but wonderful. I felt as if I were approaching the threshold of
absolute truth. A voice within me whispered, 'Go no further.' Was it the
voice of conscience? I did not heed it. Something irresistible urged me
forward. I thrust away from me with a sort of crude mental violence the
haunting thought. And when the darkness came I greeted it.

"For he came with the darkness."

On the wall opposite to the professor the thin Madonna faded away.

"As I heard his heavy step on the stairs that night I said to myself, 'At
all hazards I will see, I will know, more. I will see, I will know--all.'
When he entered at that door"--a thin darkness moved in the darkness as
Chichester pointed--"he was dreadfully white and looked sad, almost
terrified. He suggested that we should break through our plan and not
sit. I refused. He then said he wished to sit in light. I refused. He was
become my creature. He dared not disobey my desires! We placed our hands
on this table, not touching. I could no longer endure the touch of his
hand. We remained motionless. A long time passed. There were no rappings.
A strange deadness seemed to prevail in the room. Presently it faded
away, and I had the sensation that I was sitting quite alone.

"At first it seemed to me that my companion must have crept out of the
room silently, leaving me by myself in the darkness. I shuddered at the
thought that I was alone. But then I said to myself that Marcus Harding
must be there in the blackness opposite to me, and I moved my hands
furtively on the table, thinking to prove his presence to myself by
touch. I did not prove it. Suddenly I had no need to touch him in order
to know that he was there."

"Why not?" said the professor, and started at the sound of his own voice
in the little room.

"Something made me realize that he was still within the room.
Nevertheless, I felt that I was alone. How could that be? I asked myself
that question. This answer came as it were sluggishly into my mind, 'You
are alone not because Marcus Harding is away, but because Henry
Chichester is away.' For a long while I sat there stagnantly dwelling on
this knowledge which had come to me in the blackness. It was as if I knew
without understanding, as a man may know he is involved in a catastrophe
without reali