Then, suddenly, she saw, and let go, and dropped, crouching on the floor and trying to cover herself. This time she had given no cry. The phantasm gave way; it moved slowly towards the door, and as it went it looked back over its shoulder at Marston, it trailed a hand, signalling to him to come. He went out after it, hardly aware of Pauline’s naked body that still writhed there, clutching at his feet as they passed, and drew itself after him, like a worm, like a beast, along the floor. [Illustration: ... drew itself after him along the floor.] She must have got up at once and followed them out on to the landing; for, as he went down the stairs behind the phantasm, he could see Pauline’s face, distorted with lust and terror, peering at them above the stairhead. She saw them descend the last flight, and cross the hall at the bottom and go into the library. The door shut behind them. Something happened in there. Marston never told me precisely what it was, and I didn’t ask him. Anyhow, that finished it. The next day Pauline ran away to her own people. She couldn’t stay in Marston’s house because it was haunted by Rosamund, and he wouldn’t leave it for the same reason. And she never came back; for she was not only afraid of Rosamund, she was afraid of Marston. And if she _had_ come it wouldn’t have been any good. Marston was convinced that, as often as he attempted to get to Pauline, something would stop him. Pauline certainly felt that, if Rosamund were pushed to it, she might show herself in some still more sinister and terrifying form. She knew when she was beaten. And there was more in it than that. I believe he tried to explain it to her; said he had married her on the assumption that Rosamund was dead, but that now he knew she was alive; she was, as he put it, “there.” He tried to make her see that if he had Rosamund he couldn’t have _her_. Rosamund’s presence in the world annulled their contract. You see I’m convinced that something _did_ happen that night in the library. I say, he never told me precisely what it was, but he once let something out. We were discussing one of Pauline’s love-affairs (after the separation she gave him endless grounds for divorce). “Poor Pauline,” he said, “she thinks she’s so passionate.” “Well,” I said, “wasn’t she?” Then he burst out. “No. She doesn’t know what passion is. None of you know. You haven’t the faintest conception. You’d have to get rid of your bodies first. _I_ didn’t know until—” He stopped himself. I think he was going to say, “until Rosamund came back and showed me.” For he leaned forward and whispered: “It isn’t a localized affair at all.... If you only knew—” So I don’t think it was just faithfulness to a revived memory. I take it there had been, behind that shut door, some experience, some terrible and exquisite contact. More penetrating than sight or touch. More—more extensive: passion at all points of being.