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