fairly steady head. But there were two that clung to
the mind like pitch. I have no intention of giving their titles.

Ugly and sullen, early night closed in when I was in a mood akin to it.
Dinner with Phillida and Vere was an ordeal hurried through. We were out
of touch. I felt remote from them; fenced apart by a heavy sense of
guilt and defilement left by those hateful books, most incongruously
blended with contempt for my companions' childish light-heartedness. As
soon as possible, I left them.

Alone in my room, in my chair behind the writing-table again, I pushed
aside the pile of books and sank into sombre thought. What should I say
to Desire Michell if she came tonight?

Who was she, who was claimed by the Unspeakable and who did not deny Its
claim? Was I confronted with two beings from places unknown to normal
humanity? If she was the woman that she had seemed to be throughout our
intercourse, how could the dark enemy control her? Even I, a common man
with full measure of mankind's common faults and weaknesses, could hold
Its clutch from me by right of the law that protects each in his place.

Was she one of those who have stepped from the permitted places?

"_Sara the daughter of Ruel--who was beloved by an evil spirit who
suffered none to come to her_."

"_There was a young gentlewoman of excellent beauty, daughter of a
nobleman of Mar, who loved a foule monstrous thing verie horrible to
behold, and for it refused rich marriages.... Until the Gospel of St.
John being said suddenlie the wicked spirit flue his waies with sore
noise_."

I put out my hand and thrust the pile of books aside from my direct
sight. But I could not so easily thrust from my mind the thoughts these
books had implanted. I could not forget that Desire Michell herself had
alleged jealousy as the Thing's reason for attacking me.

What if we came to an explanation tonight and ended this long delirium?
Was it not time? Had not my weeks of endurance earned me this right?
Resolution mounted in me, defiant and strong.

The evening had passed to an hour when I might look for the girl to
come. I switched off the lights, and sat down to keep our nightly tryst.

In the darkness of the haunted room, the thoughts I would have held at
bay rushed upon me as clamorous besiegers.

Desire! Desire of the world! Desire of mine and of the unhuman Thing,
did we grasp at Eve or Lilith? At the fire on the hearth or the cold
phosphorescence of swamp a