The Thing was not turned away. How could I do harm by learning what she was, unless she had evil to conceal? Did I fear to know the truth? As for the book's existence, I had only to accept guidance from It----? I persisted in refusal. But the idea of the book followed me through my days like a wizard's familiar dogging me. Where could such a volume be hidden, in what secret nook in wall or floor? How came a book to be written about the girl I supposed young, unknown and set apart from the world? Was I letting slip an opportunity by my fastidious notions of delicacy? Indecision and curiosity tormented me beyond rest. Phillida and Vere began to consider me with puzzled eyes. Cristina developed a habit of cooking individual dishes of especial succulence and triumphantly setting them before me as a "surprise"; a kindness which of course obliged me to eat whether I was hungry or not. I suspect my little cousin abetted her in this transparent ruse. I pleaded the heat as an excuse for all. We were in late August now. Cicadas sang their dry chant in the fields, where the sun glared down upon Vere's crops and painted him the fine bronze of an Indian. Our lake scarcely stirred under the hot, still air. It was after a day of such heat, succeeded by a night hardly more cool, that the lights in my room quietly went out. I was sitting at my table, some letters which required answers spread before me while I brooded, pen between my fingers, upon the mystery which had become my life. For the moment I attributed the sudden failure of light to some accident at the powerhouse. Not for long! The hateful cold that crept like freezing vapor into the room, the foul air of damp and corruption pouring into the scented country atmosphere, the frantic revolt of body and nerves--before I turned my eyes to the window I knew the monster from the Frontier crouched there. "Weakling!" It taunted me. "Puny from of old, how should you prevail? By your fear, the woman stays mine. Miserable earth-crawler, in whose hand the weapon was laid and who shrinking let it fall unused, the end comes." "The book?" I gasped, against my better judgment. "The book was the weapon." "No, or you would not have offered it to me." "Coward, believe so. Hug the belief while you may. The offer is past." Past? A madness of bafflement and frustrated curiosity gripped and shook me. "I take the offer," I cried in passion and defiance. "If there is such a book, show it to me!" The Thing was gone. Light quietly filled the lamps--or was it that I had opened my eyes? I gripped the arms of my chair, waiting. For what? I did not know. Only, all the horror I ever had felt in the presence of the Thing was slight compared to the fear that presently began to flow upon me as an icy current. There in the pleasantly lighted room, alone, I sank through depths of dread, down into an abyss of despair, down----