p until sun
and morning overlay the countryside; whether the whispering call of
Desire Michell would summon me to an hour more exquisite than reality,
less satisfying than a dream, or whether I should leap into
consciousness of the Loathsome Eyes fixed coldly malignant upon me while
my enemy's inhuman hate groped toward me across the darkness Its
presence fouled.

For my two guests kept their promises.

If I speak briefly of the coming of the Thing during this time, I do so
because the mind shrinks from past pain. It came again, and again. It
craftily used the torture of irregularity in Its coming. For days there
might be a respite, then It would haunt me nights in succession until my
physical endurance was almost spent.

I have stood before the breach in that Barrier, fighting that nightmare
duel, until the place of colossal desolation, last frontier the human
race might hope to keep, became as well known to me as a landscape on
earth. Yet the effect of the Thing's assaults upon me never lessened. On
the contrary, the horror gained in strength. A dreadful familiarity grew
between It and me. Communication flowed more readily between us with
use. I will not set down, perhaps I dare not set down the intolerable
wickedness of Its alternate menaces and offered bribes. Contact with Its
intelligence poisoned.

There were nights when It was dumb, when all Its monstrous power
concentrated and bore upon me, Its will to destroy locked with my will.
My victory was that I lived.

* * * * *

In the shadow, Desire Michell and I drew closer to one another.

How can I tell of a love that grew without sight? So much of the love of
romance and history is a matter of flower-petal complexions,
heart-consuming eyes, satin lips, and all the form and color that make
beauty. How can I make clear a love that grew strong and passionately
demanding, knew delicate coquetries of advance and evasion, intimacy of
minds like the meeting of eyes in understanding--all in the dark? The
blind might comprehend. But the blind have a physical communication we
had not; touch has enchantments of its own.

Every night, near midnight, I switched off the lights and waited in the
chair at my writing-table, where I was accustomed to work. If she had
not come by two o'clock, I learned to know she would not visit me that
night. I might sleep in that certainty. A strange tryst I kept there in
the dark; listening to the flow of