There was never again a connected record in the diary. Pages were torn out in places, entries were broken off, half-made. But the story Vere's slow, steady voice conveyed to us was the one we knew; the one my Desire had told to me the first night I slept in this house. The half-mad girl turned to her father's deadly books. Sir Austin died as his waxen image dissolved before the fire, where the girl sat watching with merciless hate. He died, raving and frothing, on her door-sill. She never saw him after the day he rode away to prepare for their marriage. She set open her window that she might hear his progress to that hard death, but never deigned to turn her glance upon him. The clergyman was dead, now; of shame, or perhaps of terror at the child he had reared. The girl was alone. The diary grew wilder, with gaps of weeks where there were no entries. More frequently, pages were missing and paragraphs obliterated by the reddish blotches like rust or blood. There were accounts of weird, half-told experiments ranging through the three degrees of magic set forth by Talmud and Cabala. She wrote of legions of kingdoms between earth and heaven, and the twelve unearthly worlds of Plato. She alluded to a Barrier between men and other orders of beings, beyond which dwelt Those whom the magicians of old glimpsed after long toil and incantation. "Those of whom Vertabied, the Armenian, says: '_Their orders differ from one another in situation and degree of glory, just as there are different ranks among men, though they are all of one nature._' They cannot cross nor overthrow this Wall, nor can man alone; but if they and man join together----One there beyond whispers to me of power, splendor, victory----" Days later, there was entered a passage of mad triumph and terror. The Barrier was broken through. Out of the breach issued the One whom she had invited to her silver lamps; colossal, formless, whose approach froze blood and spirit. Eyes of unspeakable meaning glared across the dark, whispers unbearable to humanity beat upon her intelligence and named her comrade. Now as Vere read this, I felt again that quiver of the house or air he had likened to an earth shock and held responsible for the fall of the willow tree that had destroyed our hope of escape by automobile. I looked at my companions and saw no evidence of anyone having noticed what I had seemed to feel. Vere indeed was pale; while Phillida, who sat beside him, was highly flushed with excitement and wonder as she listened. Desire had not stirred in her chair, except to bend her head so her face was shaded by the loosened richness of her hair. Seeing them so undisturbed, I kept silence. A storm might be approaching, but I made no pretense to myself of believing that shock either thunder or earthquake.