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Page 18
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.
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