sh, it seemed to me that the house suddenly trembled as it had
done the night before, a slight shock as from some distant explosion. In
my intentness upon the woman opposite me the tremor passed unheeded. She
must answer me now, surely! Now----

She spoke with a breathless difficulty, spacing her words apart:

"How did you--find--the book?"

"It told me--the Thing from out there," I admitted, sullenly defiant of
her opinion.

She cried out sharply.

"You? You took Its gift? You did that fatal madness--and you are here?
Oh, you are lost, and the guilt mine! Yet I warned you that danger
flowed from knowing me. You accepted the risk and the sorrow--yet you
have thrown down all for a bribe of knowledge. Do you not know what it
means to take a gift from the Dark Ones of the Borderland? To brave the
Loathesome Eyes so long--and fall this way at last! Yet--there may be a
hope--since you still live. But go. Not tomorrow, not at dawn, but go
now. By all that man can dread for soul or body, go now."

"Not without you."

"Me? Oh, how can I make you understand! I shall never come here again.
Take with you my gratitude for our hours together, my prayers for all
the years to come. There is no blame to you because you could not trust
a woman on whom falls the shadow of the awful Watcher that stalks behind
me. I make no reproach--if only you will go. Do not linger. I do most
solemnly warn you not to stay alone in this room one moment after I have
gone."

"Desire!" I exclaimed. "Wait. Forgive me. I trust you. I did not mean
what you believe. Do not leave me this way. Desire----"

I can say honestly that my next action was without intention. On my
table lay, as usual, a small electric torch. Every member of our
household was provided with one for use in emergencies likely to occur
in a country house, the time of candles being past. Now, rising in
agitation and repentance, my hand pressed by chance upon the
flashlight's button. A beam of light poured across the darkness.

What did I see, starting out of the black gloom? A spirit or a woman?
Were those a woman's draperies or part of the night fog that showed mere
swirl upon swirl of pale gray twisting in the path of light? I glimpsed
a face colorless as pearl, the shine of eyes dark and almond shaped,
then a drifting mass of gray smoke, all intermingled with glittering
gold flashes, seemed to close between us. The whole apparition sank down
out of vision, as aghast, I lifted my