He did not finish the sentence, for I sprang at him, crushed him to the floor, squeezed his throat till his face grew black and the froth oozed out from his lips, beat his head upon the hearthstones till he lay still and bleeding, and then sought my knife. It was up stairs. I flew to get it. It lay upon my dressing table before the glass, and I snatched at it. Great God! as I did so, another arm was thrust forth--not mine, I swear, if I live a thousand years; and as I recoiled, I saw in that glass a fiend step back. Not me, not me!--but a fiend with bloody hands, and a foul leer upon its face, and a fierce, cruel laugh in its glittering eyes. It was he, it was he! It was the devil that had possessed me before, come back again. And as I shuddered and gasped, and turned away, and then looked again into those eyes that pierced _me_ through, and saw the cold, bitter smile that was on the face before me, I knew that the fiend would leave me never more, and that I was mad! What was a quarrel with my brother now? I stole back, and, lifting him up, carried him to his room, where I washed the blood from his face. When he came to himself I fell at his feet and besought his pardon, and that he would keep what had happened a secret. He forgave me. And I believe the only lie he ever told in all his life was when he told Lucy that he had cut his head by falling on a jagged stone. Oh, how often after that my fingers itched to be at his throat again; but I always quailed before his steady eye. I pass over the next few years, except to say that I went to college, where I was shunned by all, though never alone: was a dunce, and plucked twice. Perhaps it was I who shunned others, for had I not society in the constant presence of my Familiar? I was of course a dunce, for my brain was never steady enough to carry me over the _Pons Asinorum_, or to make a Latin verse with even decent correctness. I went away in disgust. I think if I had stayed longer I should have torn somebody, or else myself. I went next into the army. It was a new era in my life, and, strange to say, my devil left me for a while, so that I was able to master the details of my profession, and to be esteemed a good and careful officer. There was hope, too, of active service; for the Russian Eagle was slowly unfolding his vast wings for a new descent into the plains of Europe. William, married to Her now, who was a lieutenant in the Foot Guards, wrote to me to say that he hoped we should be really brothers, now that we were to meet before an enemy; and the next day out came the declaration of war. When I had read it, I drew my sword, and, as I ran my eye along its cold, sharp blade from hilt to point, I thought how strange was its power to let out a man's life, and turn him, in a moment, into a heap of inanimate carrion.