The author shook his head.

"I destroyed it," he whispered. "But, in the end, though of course much
perturbed about it, I persuaded myself that it was due to some
after-effect of the drug, a sort of reaction that gave a twist to my
mind and made me read macabre interpretations into words and situations
that did not properly hold them."

"And, meanwhile, did the presence of this person leave you?"

"No; that stayed more or less. When my mind was actively employed I
forgot it, but when idle, dreaming, or doing nothing in particular,
there she was beside me, influencing my mind horribly--"

"In what way, precisely?" interrupted the doctor.

"Evil, scheming thoughts came to me, visions of crime, hateful pictures
of wickedness, and the kind of bad imagination that so far has been
foreign, indeed impossible, to my normal nature--"

"The pressure of the Dark Powers upon the personality," murmured the
doctor, making a quick note.

"Eh? I didn't quite catch--"

"Pray, go on. I am merely making notes; you shall know their purport
fully later."

"Even when my wife returned I was still aware of this Presence in the
house; it associated itself with my inner personality in most intimate