made one more attempt to persuade him to leave the house at once with
her.

"I must go now," she said. "Will you not come with me, after all? I am
so afraid to think of you still here."

"No, dear," he replied. "I shall not desert my post. I must solve the
riddle of this man's life; and if, indeed, he is the thing he seems to
be, I shall attempt to wrest from him what he has stolen from me. I
speak of my unwritten novel."

"Do not attempt to oppose him openly. You cannot resist him."

"Be assured that I shall be on my guard. I have in the last few hours
lived through so much that makes life worth living, that I would not
wantonly expose myself to any danger. Still, I cannot go without
certainty--cannot, if there is some truth in our fears, leave the best
of me behind."

"What are you planning to do?"

"My play--I am sure now that it is mine--I cannot take from him; that is
irretrievably lost. He has read it to his circle and prepared for its
publication. And, no matter how firmly convinced you or I may be of his
strange power, no one would believe our testimony. They would pronounce
us mad. Perhaps we _are_ mad!"

"No; we are not mad; but it is mad for you to stay here," she asserted.

"I shall not stay here one minute longer than is absolutely essential.