“It was one night when I lay awake in bed, unable to sleep. I had been drinking. The drink had been bad. Among the goblins which it brought to my bedside were thoughts of my brother. I thought of how the luck had all been his; of what a grip he had; of his bone and muscle; of how, in our quarrels, it always had gone hard with me; of how, in the next one, which was close at hand, it would go harder still. He was more than a match for me all round. In peace or war he was the stronger man. How could I get even with him? How? “Then I thought of the Goddess. It was from herself that the first inspiration came; she precipitated herself, as the occultists have it, into my mind. I suspected it then; I know it now. She had remained, till then, in the packing-case in which I brought her home. She had never been out of it, not once. I had never taken the trouble to unpack her. She might have feared she was forgotten; felt herself slighted. No; that’s not her way. She knows she’ll never be forgotten; and as for slights, she never will be slighted when there’s need of her. She had been waiting; that was all--waiting for her time. Now her time had come. She knew it. So she reminded me that she was there. “It struck me, at first, as a humorous idea--The Goddess. It always is her humorous side which appeals to one at first. Indeed, it is that side of her which continues to the front; only--the character of the humour changes. I laughed to think that her existence should occur to me at such a moment. And, as I laughed, she laughed too. It was the first time I had heard her laughter. The sound of it had an odd effect on the marrow in my bones. Even then I asked myself if by any possibility I could be going mad. She was in the cupboard on the other side of my dressing-room. All other considerations apart, it was an odd thing that I should hear her so plainly from where I lay. “‘I’ll go and look at her,’ I said. I went. As I opened the cupboard door she laughed again--a little, soft, musical laugh, suggestive of exquisite enjoyment. It drew me on. ‘Why,’ I cried, ‘I didn’t know that you could laugh. Where are you? Let’s free you from your prison. If you’re as pretty as your laughter, you should be well worth looking at.’