If I live to be a hundred I shall not forget the absolute, the unspeakable, the indescribable terror of that moment. Till then I had never regarded myself in the light of a coward; on the contrary, I had on several occasions had good reason to congratulate myself upon what is popularly termed my "nerve." Now, however, it was all different. Possibly the feeling of repulsion, I might almost say of fear, I had hitherto entertained for him had something to do with it. It may have been the mesmeric power, which I afterward had good reason to know he possessed, that did it. At any rate, from the moment he pounced upon me I found myself incapable of resistance. It was as if all my will power were being slowly extracted from me by the mere contact of those skeleton fingers which, when they had once touched my flesh, seemed to lose their icy coldness and to burn like red-hot iron. In a dim and misty fashion, somewhat as one sees people in a fog, I was conscious of the devilish ferocity of the countenance that was looking into mine. Then a strange feeling of numbness took possession of me, an entire lack of interest in everything, even in life itself. Gradually and easily I sank into the chair behind me, the room swam before my eyes, an intense craving for sleep overcame me, and little by little, still without any attempt at resistance, my head fell back and I lost consciousness. CHAPTER IV. When I came to myself again it was already morning. In a small square behind the studio the sparrows were discussing the prospects of breakfast, though as yet that earliest of all birds, the milkman, had not begun to make his presence known in the streets. Of all the hours of the day there is not one, to my thinking, so lonely and so full of dreariness as that which immediately precedes and ushers in the dawn; while, of all the experiences of our human life, there is, perhaps, not one more unpleasant than to awake from sleep at such an hour to find that one has passed the entire night in one's clothes and seated in a most comfortable armchair. That was my lot on this occasion. On opening my eyes I looked around me with a puzzled air. For the life of me I could not understand why I was not in my bed. It was the first time I had ever gone to sleep in my chair, and the knowledge that I had done so disquieted me strangely. I studied the room, but, to all intents and purposes, everything there was just as when I had closed my eyes. I only was changed. My brain was as heavy as lead, and, though I did my best to recall the events of the previous evening, I found that, while I could recollect the "at home" at Medenham House, and my return to my studio afterward, I could remember nothing that followed later. I was still pursuing this train of thought when I became aware of a loud knocking at the street door. I immediately hastened to it and drew the bolts. My feeling of bewilderment was increased rather than diminished on