I read over my notes of what the woman said when she spoke about her
powers. There is one point which fills me with dismay. She implies
that when the influence is slight the subject knows what he is doing,
but cannot control himself, whereas when it is strongly exerted he is
absolutely unconscious. Now, I have always known what I did, though
less so last night than on the previous occasions. That seems to mean
that she has never yet exerted her full powers upon me. Was ever a man
so placed before?
Yes, perhaps there was, and very near me, too. Charles Sadler must
know something of this! His vague words of warning take a meaning now.
Oh, if I had only listened to him then, before I helped by these
repeated sittings to forge the links of the chain which binds me! But
I will see him to-day. I will apologize to him for having treated his
warning so lightly. I will see if he can advise me.
4 P. M. No, he cannot. I have talked with him, and he showed such
surprise at the first words in which I tried to express my unspeakable
secret that I went no further. As far as I can gather (by hints and
inferences rather than by any statement), his own experience was
limited to some words or looks such as I have myself endured. His
abandonment of Miss Penclosa is in itself a sign that he was never
really in her toils. Oh, if he only knew his escape! He has to thank
his phlegmatic Saxon temperament for it. I am black and Celtic, and
this hag's clutch is deep in my nerves. Shall I ever get it out?
Shall I ever be the same man that I was just one short fortnight ago?
Let me consider what I had better do. I cannot leave the university in
the middle of the term. If I were free, my course would be obvious. I
should start at once and travel in Persia. But would she allow me to
start? And could her influence not reach me in Persia, and bring me
back to within touch of her crutch? I can only find out the limits of
this hellish power by my own bitter experience. I will fight and fight
and fight--and what can I do more?
I know very well that about eight o'clock to-night that craving for her
society, that irresistible restlessness, will come upon me. How shall
I overcome it? What shall I do? I must make it impossible for me to
leave the room. I shall lock the door and throw the key out of the
window. But, then, what am I to do in the morning? Never mind about
the morning. I must at all costs break this chain which holds me.
April 9. Victory! I have done splendidly! At seven o'clock last
night I took a hasty dinner, and then locked myself up in my bedroom
and dropped the key into the garden. I chose a cheery novel, and lay
in bed for three hours trying to read it, but really in a horrible
state of trepidation, expecting every instant that I should become
conscious of the impulse. Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and I
awoke this morning with the feeling that a black nightmare had been
lifted off me. Perhaps the creature realized what I had done, and
understood that it was useless to try to influence me. At any rate, I
have beaten her once, and if I can do it once, I can do it again.
It was most awkward about the key in the morning. Luckily, there was
an under-gardener below, and I asked him to throw it up. No doubt he
thought I had just dropped it. I will have doors and windows screwed
up and six stout men to hold me down in my bed before I will surrender
myself to be hag-ridden in this way.
I had a note from Mrs. Marden this afternoon asking me to go round and
see her. I intended to do so in any case, but had not excepted to find
bad news waiting for me. It seems that the Armstrongs, from whom
Agatha has expectations, are due home from Adelaide in the Aurora, and
that they have written to Mrs. Marden and her to meet them in town.
They will probably be away for a month or six weeks, and, as the Aurora
is due on Wednesday, they must go at once--to-morrow, if they are ready
in time. My consolation is that when we meet again there will be no
more parting between Agatha and me.
"I want you to do one thing, Agatha," said I, when we were alone
together. "If you should happen to meet Miss Penclosa, either in town
or here, you must promise me never again to allow her to mesmerize you."
Agatha opened her eyes.
"Why, it was only the other day that you were saying how interesting it
all was, and how determined you were to finish your experiments."
"I know, but I have changed my mind since then."
"And you won't have it any more?"
"No."
"I am so glad, Austin. You can't think how pale and worn you have been
lately. It was really our principal objection to going to London now
that we did not wish to leave you when you were so pulled down. And
your manner has been so strange occasionally--especially that night
when you left poor Professor Pratt-Haldane to play dummy. I am
convinced that these experiments are very bad for your nerves."
"I think so, too, dear."
"And for Miss Penclosa's nerves as well. You have heard that she is
ill?"
"No."
"Mrs. Wilson told us so last night. She described it as a nervous
fever. Professor Wilson is coming back this week, and of course Mrs.
Wilson is very anxious that Miss Penclosa should be well again then,
for he has quite a programme of experiments which he is anxious to
carry out."
I was glad to have Agatha's promise, for it was enough that this woman
should have one of us in her clutch. On the other hand, I was
disturbed to hear about Miss Penclosa's illness. It rather discounts
the victory which I appeared to win last night. I remember that she
said that loss of health interfered with her power. That may be why I
was able to hold my own so easily. Well, well, I must take the same
precautions to-night and see what comes of it. I am childishly
frightened when I think of her.
April 10. All went very well last night. I was amused at the
gardener's face when I had again to hail him this morning and to ask
him to throw up my key. I shall get a name among the servants if this
sort of thing goes on. But the great point is that I stayed in my room
without the slightest inclination to leave it. I do believe that I am
shaking myself clear of this incredible bond--or is it only that the
woman's power is in abeyance until she recovers her strength? I can
but pray for the best.
The Mardens left this morning, and the brightness seems to have gone
out of the spring sunshine. And yet it is very beautiful also as it
gleams on the green chestnuts opposite my windows, and gives a touch of
gayety to the heavy, lichen-mottled walls of the old colleges. How
sweet and gentle and soothing is Nature! Who would think that there
lurked in her also such vile forces, such odious possibilities! For of
course I understand that this dreadful thing which has sprung out at me
is neither supernatural nor even preternatural. No, it is a natural
force which this woman can use and society is ignorant of. The mere
fact that it ebbs with her strength shows how entirely it is subject to
physical laws. If I had time, I might probe it to the bottom and lay
my hands upon its antidote. But you cannot tame the tiger when you are
beneath his claws. You can but try to writhe away from him. Ah, when
I look in the glass and see my own dark eyes and clear-cut Spanish
face, I long for a vitriol splash or a bout of the small-pox. One or
the other might have saved me from this calamity.
I am inclined to think that I may have trouble to-night. There are two
things which make me fear so. One is that I met Mrs. Wilson in the
street, and that she tells me that Miss Penclosa is better, though
still weak. I find myself wishing in my heart that the illness had
been her last. The other is that Professor Wilson comes back in a day
or two, and his presence would act as a constraint upon her. I should
not fear our interviews if a third person were present. For both these
reasons I have a presentiment of trouble to-night, and I shall take the
same precautions as before.
April 10. No, thank God, all went well last night. I really could not
face the gardener again. I locked my door and thrust the key
underneath it, so that I had to ask the maid to let me out in the
morning. But the precaution was really not needed, for I never had any
inclination to go out at all. Three evenings in succession at home! I
am surely near the end of my troubles, for Wilson will be home again
either today or tomorrow. Shall I tell him of what I have gone through
or not? I am convinced that I should not have the slightest sympathy
from him. He would look upon me as an interesting case, and read a
paper about me at the next meeting of the Psychical Society, in which
he would gravely discuss the possibility of my being a deliberate liar,
and weigh it against the chances of my being in an early stage of
lunacy. No, I shall get no comfort out of Wilson.
I am feeling wonderfully fit and well. I don't think I ever lectured
with greater spirit. Oh, if I could only get this shadow off my life,
how happy I should be! Young, fairly wealthy, in the front rank of my
profession, engaged to a beautiful and charming girl--have I not every
thing which a man could ask for? Only one thing to trouble me, but
what a thing it is!
Midnight. I shall go mad. Yes, that will be the end of it. I shall
go mad. I am not far from it now. My head throbs as I rest it on my
hot hand. I am quivering all over like a scared horse. Oh, what a
night I have had! And yet I have some cause to be satisfied also.
At the risk of becoming the laughing-stock of my own servant, I again
slipped my key under the door, imprisoning myself for the night. Then,
finding it too early to go to bed, I lay down with my clothes on and
began to read one of Dumas's novels. Suddenly I was gripped--gripped
and dragged from the couch. It is only thus that I can describe the
overpowering nature of the force which pounced upon me. I clawed at
the coverlet. I clung to the wood-work. I believe that I screamed out
in my frenzy. It was all useless, hopeless. I MUST go. There was no
way out of it. It was only at the outset that I resisted. The force
soon became too overmastering for that. I thank goodness that there
were no watchers there to interfere with me. I could not have answered
for myself if there had been. And, besides the determination to get
out, there came to me, also, the keenest and coolest judgment in
choosing my means. I lit a candle and endeavored, kneeling in front of
the door, to pull the key through with the feather-end of a quill pen.
It was just too short and pushed it further away. Then with quiet
persistence I got a paper-knife out of one of the drawers, and with
that I managed to draw the key back. I opened the door, stepped into
my study, took a photograph of myself from the bureau, wrote something
across it, placed it in the inside pocket of my coat, and then started
off for Wilson's.
It was all wonderfully clear, and yet disassociated from the rest of my
life, as the incidents of even the most vivid dream might be. A
peculiar double consciousness possessed me. There was the predominant
alien will, which was bent upon drawing me to the side of its owner,
and there was the feebler protesting personality, which I recognized as
being myself, tugging feebly at the overmastering impulse as a led
terrier might at its chain. I can remember recognizing these two
conflicting forces, but I recall nothing of my walk, nor of how I was
admitted to the house.
Very vivid, however, is my recollection of how I met Miss Penclosa.
She was reclining on the sofa in the little boudoir in which our
experiments had usually been carried out. Her head was rested on her
hand, and a tiger-skin rug had been partly drawn over her. She looked
up expectantly as I entered, and, as the lamp-light fell upon her face,
I could see that she was very pale and thin, with dark hollows under
her eyes. She smiled at me, and pointed to a stool beside her. It was
with her left hand that she pointed, and I, running eagerly forward,
seized it,--I loathe myself as I think of it,--and pressed it
passionately to my lips. Then, seating myself upon the stool, and
still retaining her hand, I gave her the photograph which I had brought
with me, and talked and talked and talked--of my love for her, of my
grief over her illness, of my joy at her recovery, of the misery it was
to me to be absent a single evening from her side. She lay quietly
looking down at me with imperious eyes and her provocative smile. Once
I remember that she passed her hand over my hair as one caresses a dog;
and it gave me pleasure--the caress. I thrilled under it. I was her
slave, body and soul, and for the moment I rejoiced in my slavery.
And then came the blessed change. Never tell me that there is not a
Providence! I was on the brink of perdition. My feet were on the
edge. Was it a coincidence that at that very instant help should come?
No, no, no; there is a Providence, and its hand has drawn me back.
There is something in the universe stronger than this devil woman with
her tricks. Ah, what a balm to my heart it is to think so!
As I looked up at her I was conscious of a change in her. Her face,
which had been pale before, was now ghastly. Her eyes were dull, and
the lids drooped heavily over them. Above all, the look of serene
confidence had gone from her features. Her mouth had weakened. Her
forehead had puckered. She was frightened and undecided. And as I
watched the change my own spirit fluttered and struggled, trying hard
to tear itself from the grip which held it--a grip which, from moment
to moment, grew less secure.
"Austin," she whispered, "I have tried to do too much. I was not
strong enough. I have not recovered yet from my illness. But I could
not live longer without seeing you. You won't leave me, Austin? This
is only a passing weakness. If you will only give me five minutes, I
shall be myself again. Give me the small decanter from the table in
the window."
But I had regained my soul. With her waning strength the influence had
cleared away from me and left me free. And I was aggressive--bitterly,
fiercely aggressive. For once at least I could make this woman
understand what my real feelings toward her were. My soul was filled
with a hatred as bestial as the love against which it was a reaction.
It was the savage, murderous passion of the revolted serf. I could
have taken the crutch from her side and beaten her face in with it.
She threw her hands up, as if to avoid a blow, and cowered away from me
into the corner of the settee.
"The brandy!" she gasped. "The brandy!"
I took the decanter and poured it over the roots of a palm in the
window. Then I snatched the photograph from her hand and tore it into
a hundred pieces.
"You vile woman," I said, "if I did my duty to society, you would never
leave this room alive!"
"I love you, Austin; I love you!" she wailed.
"Yes," I cried, "and Charles Sadler before. And how many others before
that?"
"Charles Sadler!" she gasped. "He has spoken to you? So, Charles
Sadler, Charles Sadler!" Her voice came through her white lips like a
snake's hiss.
"Yes, I know you, and others shall know you, too. You shameless
creature! You knew how I stood. And yet you used your vile power to
bring me to your side. You may, perhaps, do so again, but at least you
will remember that you have heard me say that I love Miss Marden from
the bottom of my soul, and that I loathe you, abhor you!
"The very sight of you and the sound of your voice fill me with horror
and disgust. The thought of you is repulsive. That is how I feel
toward you, and if it pleases you by your tricks to draw me again to
your side as you have done to-night, you will at least, I should think,
have little satisfaction in trying to make a lover out of a man who has
told you his real opinion of you. You may put what words you will into
my mouth, but you cannot help remembering----"
I stopped, for the woman's head had fallen back, and she had fainted.
She could not bear to hear what I had to say to her! What a glow of
satisfaction it gives me to think that, come what may, in the future
she can never misunderstand my true feelings toward her. But what will
occur in the future? What will she do next? I dare not think of it.
Oh, if only I could hope that she will leave me alone! But when I
think of what I said to her---- Never mind; I have been stronger than
she for once.
April 11. I hardly slept last night, and found myself in the morning
so unstrung and feverish that I was compelled to ask Pratt-Haldane to
do my lecture for me. It is the first that I have ever missed. I rose
at mid-day, but my head is aching, my hands quivering, and my nerves in
a pitiable state.
Who should come round this evening but Wilson. He has just come back
from London, where he has lectured, read papers, convened meetings,
exposed a medium, conducted a series of experiments on thought
transference, entertained Professor Richet of Paris, spent hours gazing
into a crystal, and obtained some evidence as to the passage of matter
through matter. All this he poured into my ears in a single gust.
"But you!" he cried at last. "You are not looking well. And Miss
Penclosa is quite prostrated to-day. How about the experiments?"
"I have abandoned them."
"Tut, tut! Why?"
"The subject seems to me to be a dangerous one."
Out came his big brown note-book.
"This is of great interest," said he. "What are your grounds for
saying that it is a dangerous one? Please give your facts in
chronological order, with approximate dates and names of reliable
witnesses with their permanent addresses."
"First of all," I asked, "would you tell me whether you have collected
any cases where the mesmerist has gained a command over the subject and
has used it for evil purposes?"
"Dozens!" he cried exultantly. "Crime by suggestion----"
"I don't mean suggestion. I mean where a sudden impulse comes from a
person at a distance--an uncontrollable impulse."
"Obsession!" he shrieked, in an ecstasy of delight. "It is the rarest
condition. We have eight cases, five well attested. You don't mean to
say----" His exultation made him hardly articulate.
"No, I don't," said I. "Good-evening! You will excuse me, but I am
not very well to-night." And so at last I got rid of him, still
brandishing his pencil and his note-book. My troubles may be bad to
hear, but at least it is better to hug them to myself than to have
myself exhibited by Wilson, like a freak at a fair. He has lost sight
of human beings. Every thing to him is a case and a phenomenon. I
will die before I speak to him again upon the matter.
April 12. Yesterday was a blessed day of quiet, and I enjoyed an
uneventful night. Wilson's presence is a great consolation. What can
the woman do now? Surely, when she has heard me say what I have said,
she will conceive the same disgust for me which I have for her. She
could not, no, she COULD not, desire to have a lover who had insulted
her so. No, I believe I am free from her love--but how about her hate?
Might she not use these powers of hers for revenge? Tut! why should I
frighten myself over shadows? She will forget about me, and I shall
forget about her, and all will be well.
April 13. My nerves have quite recovered their tone. I really believe
that I have conquered the creature. But I must confess to living in
some suspense. She is well again, for I hear that she was driving with
Mrs. Wilson in the High Street in the afternoon.
April 14. I do wish I could get away from the place altogether. I
shall fly to Agatha's side the very day that the term closes. I
suppose it is pitiably weak of me, but this woman gets upon my nerves
most terribly. I have seen her again, and I have spoken with her.
It was just after lunch, and I was smoking a cigarette in my study,
when I heard the step of my servant Murray in the passage. I was
languidly conscious that a second step was audible behind, and had
hardly troubled myself to speculate who it might be, when suddenly a
slight noise brought me out of my chair with my skin creeping with
apprehension. I had never particularly observed before what sort of
sound the tapping of a crutch was, but my quivering nerves told me that
I heard it now in the sharp wooden clack which alternated with the
muffled thud of the foot fall. Another instant and my servant had
shown her in.
I did not attempt the usual conventions of society, nor did she. I
simply stood with the smouldering cigarette in my hand, and gazed at
her. She in her turn looked silently at me, and at her look I
remembered how in these very pages I had tried to define the expression
of her eyes, whether they were furtive or fierce. To-day they were
fierce--coldly and inexorably so.
"Well," said she at last, "are you still of the same mind as when I saw
you last?"
"I have always been of the same mind."
"Let us understand each other, Professor Gilroy," said she slowly. "I
am not a very safe person to trifle with, as you should realize by now.
It was you who asked me to enter into a series of experiments with you,
it was you who won my affections, it was you who professed your love
for me, it was you who brought me your own photograph with words of
affection upon it, and, finally, it was you who on the very same
evening thought fit to insult me most outrageously, addressing me as no
man has ever dared to speak to me yet. Tell me that those words came
from you in a moment of passion and I am prepared to forget and to
forgive them. You did not mean what you said, Austin? You do not
really hate me?"
I might have pitied this deformed woman--such a longing for love broke
suddenly through the menace of her eyes. But then I thought of what I
had gone through, and my heart set like flint.
"If ever you heard me speak of love," said I, "you know very well that
it was your voice which spoke, and not mine. The only words of truth
which I have ever been able to say to you are those which you heard
when last we met."
"I know. Some one has set you against me. It was he!" She tapped with
her crutch upon the floor. "Well, you know very well that I could
bring you this instant crouching like a spaniel to my feet. You will
not find me again in my hour of weakness, when you can insult me with
impunity. Have a care what you are doing, Professor Gilroy. You stand
in a terrible position. You have not yet realized the hold which I
have upon you."