g out of the grey eyes, that were in turns mocking and
voluptuous. My heart stood still within me; every hair rose up erect;
my flesh crept with horror. I could not see the grave and tender
Lucy--my eyes were fascinated by the creature beyond. I know not why,
but I put out my hand to clutch it; I grasped nothing but empty air,
and my whole blood curdled to ice. For a moment I could not see; then
my sight came back, and I saw Lucy standing before me, alone, deathly
pale, and, I could have fancied, almost, shrunk in size.

'IT has been near me?' she said, as if asking a question.

The sound seemed taken out of her voice; it was husky as the notes on
an old harpsichord when the strings have ceased to vibrate. She read
her answer in my face, I suppose, for I could not speak. Her look was
one of intense fear, but that died away into an aspect of most humble
patience. At length she seemed to force herself to face behind and
around her: she saw the purple moors, the blue distant hills, quivering
in the sunlight, but nothing else.

'Will you take me home?' she said, meekly.

I took her by the hand, and led her silently through the budding
heather--we dared not speak; for we could not tell but that the dread
creature was listening, although unseen,--but that IT might appear and
push us asunder. I never loved her more fondly than now when--and that
was the unspeakable misery--the idea of her was becoming so
inextricably blended with the shuddering thought of IT. She seemed to
understand what I must be feeling. She let go my hand, which she had
kept clasped until then, when we reached the garden gate, and went
forwards to meet her anxious friend, who was standing by the window
looking for her. I could not enter the house: I needed silence,
society, leisure, change--I knew not what--to shake off the sensation
of that creature's presence. Yet I lingered about the garden--I hardly
know why; I partly suppose, because I feared to encounter the
resemblance again on the solitary common, where it had vanished, and
partly from a feeling of inexpressible compassion for Lucy. In a few
minutes Mistress Clarke came forth and joined me. We walked some paces
in silence.

'You know all now,' said she, solemnly.

'I saw IT,' said I, below my breath.

'And you shrink from us, now,' she said, with a hopelessness which
stirred up all that was brave or good in me.

'Not a whit,' said I. 'Human flesh shrinks from encounter with the
powers of