But I knew that I must get away, out of sight of this moveless and

diabolic figure, which did not speak, but which made known its

commands by means of its eyes alone. "Resign her!" the eyes said.

"Tear your love for her out of your heart! Swear that you will never

see her again--or I will ruin you utterly, not only now, but forever

more!"

And though I trembled, my eyes answered "No."

For some reason which I cannot at all explain, I suddenly took off my

overcoat, and, drawing aside the screen which ran across the corner of

the room at my right hand, forming a primitive sort of wardrobe, I

hung it on one of the hooks. I had to feel with my fingers for the

hook, because I kept my gaze on the figure.

"I will go into the bedroom," I said.

And I half-turned to pass through the doorway. Then I stopped. If I

did so, the eyes of the ghost would be upon my back, and I felt that I

could only withstand that glance by meeting it. To have it on my

back!... Doubtless I was going mad. However, I went backwards through

the doorway, and then rapidly stepped out of sight of the apparition,

and sat down upon the bed.

Useless! I must return. The mere idea of the empty sitting-room--empty

with the ghost in it--filled me with a new and stranger fear. Horrible

happenings might occur in that room, and I must be there to see them!

Moreover, the ghost's gaze must not fall on nothing; that would be too

appalling (without doubt I was mad); its gaze must meet something,

otherwise it would travel out into space further and further till it

had left all the stars and waggled aimless in the ether: the notion of

such a calamity was unbearable. Besides, I was hungry for that gaze;

my eyes desired those eyes; if that glance did not press against them,

they would burst from my head and roll on the floor, and I should be

compelled to go down on my hands and knees and grope in search for

them. No, no, I must return to the sitting-room. And I returned.

The gaze met me in the doorway. And now there was something novel in

it--an added terror, a more intolerable menace, a silent imprecation

so frightful that no human being could suffer it. I sank to the

ground, and as I did so I shrieked, but it was an unheard shriek,

sounding only within the brain. And in reply to that unheard shriek I

heard the unheard voice of the ghost crying, "Yield!"

I would not yield. Crushed, maddened, tortured by a worse than any

physical torture, I would not yield. But I wanted to die. I felt that

death would be sweet and utterly desirable. And so thinking, I faded

into a kind of coma, or rather a state which was just short of coma. I

had not lost consciousness, but I was conscious of nothing but the

gaze.




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