He followed her eyes, and to his amazement saw that his fingers were as
white as usual, and quite free from the awful stain that had been there
ten minutes before. There was no sign of blood. No amount of staring
could bring it back. Had he gone out of his mind? Had his eyes and ears
played such tricks with him? Had his senses become false and perverted?
He dashed past the landlady, out into the passage, and gained his own
room in a couple of strides. Whew! . . . the partition no longer bulged.
The paper was not torn. There was no creeping, crawling thing on the
faded old carpet.

"It's all over now," drawled the metallic voice behind him. "I'm going
to bed again."

He turned and saw the landlady slowly going downstairs again, still
shading the candle with her hand and peering up at him from time to time
as she moved. A black, ugly, unwholesome object, he thought, as she
disappeared into the darkness below, and the last flicker of her candle
threw a queer-shaped shadow along the wall and over the ceiling.

Without hesitating a moment, Shorthouse threw himself into his clothes
and went out of the house. He preferred the storm to the horrors of that
top floor, and he walked the streets till daylight. In the evening he
told the landlady he would leave next day, in spite of her assurances
that nothing more would happen.

"It never comes back," she said--"that is, not after he's killed."

Shorthouse gasped.