*****
That was nearly twenty years ago, and yet to-night the memory of that
moment, and what followed it, bring a fear to my heart which I must
combat. I have read of men who lived for long spaces of time haunted
by demons created by their imagination, and I have laughed at them and
pitied them. Surely I am not going to join in their folly, in their
madness, led to the gates of terror by my own fancies, half-confirmed,
apparently, by the chance utterances of a conceited Professor--a man of
fads, although a man of science.
That was twenty years ago. After to-night let me forget it. After
to-night, do I say? Hark! the birds are twittering in the dew outside.
The pale, early sun-shafts strike over the moors. And I am tired.
To-morrow night I will finish this wrestle with my own folly; I will
give the _coup de grâce_ to my imagination.. But no more now. My brain
is not calm, and I will not write in excitement.