So he turned into his own room, backing, he says, so that he could keep looking at her. And when he stood on the threshold of his own door she wasn’t there. No, he wasn’t frightened. He couldn’t tell me what he felt; but he left his door open all night because he couldn’t bear to shut it on her. And he made no other attempt to go in to Pauline; he was so convinced that the phantasm of Rosamund would come again and stop him. I don’t know what sort of excuse he made to Pauline the next morning. He said she was very stiff and sulky all day; and no wonder. He was still infatuated with her, and I don’t think that the phantasm of Rosamund had put him off Pauline in the least. In fact, he persuaded himself that the thing was nothing but a hallucination, due, no doubt, to his excitement. Anyhow, he didn’t expect to see it at the door again the next night. Yes. It was there. Only, this time, he said, it drew aside to let him pass. It smiled at him, as if it were saying, “Go in, if you must; you’ll see what’ll happen.” He had no sense that it had followed him into the room; he felt certain that, this time, it would let him be. It was when he approached Pauline’s bed, which had been Rosamund’s bed, that she appeared again, standing between it and him, and stretching out her arms to keep him back. [Illustration: ... stretching out her arms to keep him back.] All that Pauline could see was her bridegroom backing and backing, then standing there, fixed, and the look on his face. That in itself was enough to frighten her. She said, “What’s the matter with you, Edward?” He didn’t move. “What are you standing there for? Why don’t you come to bed?” Then Marston seems to have lost his head and blurted it out: “I can’t. I can’t.” “Can’t what?” said Pauline from the bed. “Can’t sleep with you. She won’t let me.” “She?” “Rosamund. My wife. She’s there.” “What on earth are you talking about?” “She’s there, I tell you. She won’t let me. She’s pushing me back.” He says Pauline must have thought he was drunk or something. Remember, she _saw_ nothing but Edward, his face, and his mysterious attitude. He must have looked very drunk. She sat up in bed, with her hard, black eyes blazing away at him, and told him to leave the room that minute. Which he did. The next day she had it out with him. I gathered that she kept on talking about the “state” he was in. “You came to my room, Edward, in a _disgraceful_ state.” I suppose Marston said he was sorry; but he couldn’t help it; he wasn’t drunk. He stuck to it that Rosamund was there. He had seen her. And Pauline said, if he wasn’t drunk then he must be mad, and he said meekly, “Perhaps I _am_ mad.” That set her off, and she broke out in a fury. He was no more mad than she was; but he didn’t care for her; he was making ridiculous excuses; shamming, to put her off. There was some other woman.