said.

Then he turned, went back to his couch, and this time lay down on it
flat, turning over on his side, away from her, as if to sleep. He
settled himself there like a dog. She looked at him a moment; then
closed her eyes and began again.

* * * * *

Five minutes later she understood.

The first symptom of which she was aware was a powerlessness to
formulate her prayers. Up to that point she had leaned, as has been
said, on an enormous Power external to herself, yet approached by an
interior way. Now it required an effort of the will to hold to that
Power at all. In terms of space, let it be said that she had rested,
like a child in the dark, upon Something that sustained her: now she
was aware that it no longer sustained her; but that it needed a strong
continuous effort to apprehend it at all. There was still the dark
about her; but it was of a different quality--it cannot be expressed
otherwise--it was as the darkness of an unknown gulf compared to the
darkness of a familiar room. It was of such a nature that space and
form seemed meaningless....

The next symptom was a sense of terror, comparable only to that which
she had succeeded in crushing down as she stood on the stairs four or
five hours before. That, however, had been external to her; she had
entered it. Now it had entered her, and lay, heavy as pitch, upon the
very springs of her interior life. It was terror of something to come.
That which it heralded was not yet come: but it was approaching.

The third symptom was the approach itself--swift and silent, like the
running of a bear; so swift that it was upon her through the dark
before she could stir or act. It came upon her, in a flash at the
last; and she understood the whole secret.

It is possible only to describe it as, afterwards, she described it
herself. The powerlessness and the terror were no more than the
far-off effect of its approach; the Thing itself was the center.

Of that realm of being from which it came she had no previous
conception: she had known evil only in its effects--in sins of herself
and others--known it as a man passing through a hospital ward sees
flushed or pale faces, or bandaged wounds. Now she caught some glimpse
of its essence, in the atmosphere of this bear-like thing that was
upon her. As aches and pains are to Death, so were sins to this
Personality--symptoms, premonitions, causes, but not Itself. And she
was aware that the Thi