From that moment I felt more enslaved than ever. I shuddered at the thought of disobeying him; I felt more than ever a lost man. As I felt at that moment, in spite of my desire to let every one know this man's power over me, I would rather have pulled out my tongue than have done so. "Are those all your commands?" I said humbly. "Ah! you are cowed at last, are you?" he said mockingly. "You matched your strength with mine; now you know what it means. You did not think I could crush you like a grasshopper, did you? Yes, I have one other command for you. You must go to London to-morrow, and go on with your old work. You must not hold any communication with Miss Forrest, my affianced bride. I myself am going to London to-day, and most likely shall remain there for a while. Perhaps I shall want to see you occasionally. If I do, you will quickly know. I shall have no need to tell you my address;" and he laughed a savage laugh. "Is that all?" I said. "That is all. You will come to the wedding, Mr. Blake. You shall see her arrayed for her husband, dressed all in white, as a bride should be. You shall see her lips touch mine. You shall see us go away together--the woman you love, and the man who has crushed you as if you were a worm." This maddened me. By a tremendous effort of will I was free. "That shall never be. Somehow, some way, I will thwart you," I cried. "I will free myself from you; I will snap your cruel chain asunder." "I defy you!" he said. "You can do nothing that I have commanded you not to do. For the rest I care not a jot." He went away, leaving me alone, and then all the sensations of the previous nights came back to me. I remembered what the ghost was supposed to foretell, and the evil influence the dark pond was said to have. I saw again the large red hand on the water's surface. I recalled dimly the struggle, the fighting, the strange feeling I had as my senses began to leave me. Could I have killed him? If I did, I was guiltless of crime. It was not my heart that conceived the thought; it was not I who really did the deed. I had no pangs of conscience, no feeling of remorse, and yet the thought that I had hurried a man into eternity was horrible.