Yet I still recollected most distinctly that touch upon my cheek. And I still had the black silhouette of that phantom hand photographed indelibly upon my memory. I tried to persuade myself that the incident was but a mere chimera of my overwrought imagination, but, alas! to no avail. I had actually seen Something with my own eyes! But what could that weird Something have been? Of what evil had Melvill Arnold desired to warn me when he had scrawled those curious final words before expiring? CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A FURTHER PROBLEM. I had seen the sign of the Hand against which Melvill Arnold had warned me with final effort before he expired. I could not close my eyes again. Thoroughly awakened, I lay trying to convince myself that it was but a bad dream. Yet so distinct had been that touch, that I still felt the repulsive contact that had thrilled me and left upon me such a lasting impression. In the uncertain light of early morning one's brain is often full of weird fancies, and as I lay there wondering, a thousand curious unreal conjectures floated through my mind. I was not old, yet in my life I had probably travelled more, and seen more, than most men of my age. Of little love affairs I had had, of course, one or two. None of them had been serious--none, until the present. Yes, I may as well here confess it. I loved Asta Seymour. From the first moment that she had met me in that lonely country road, and I had sat by her side in the car, she had exercised over me a strange and fatal fascination. I found myself beneath the spell of her bewitching beauty. I was drawn towards her by some strange, irresistible, unknown power-- drawn to her as the moth is drawn towards the candle. Fascinated alike by the mystery surrounding her foster-father and by her sweet pensive face, I had been constantly in her company. My thoughts were ever of her, to the oblivion of all else in the world. She was all in all to me, and I was now involuntarily her slave, so entangled had I become in the net of her sweet and wondrous charm. Ah yes! I loved her--loved her with all the strength of my being, with all the passion of my soul. But I had not spoken. My secret was as yet my own. Nevertheless, it was in order to be near her that I, like Nicholson, had accepted Shaw's invitation; in order also to protect her, for, knowing what I did of the man's peril of arrest, I had been seized by a strange presage of evil that might befall her. I lay awake, listening to the clanging of the old bells of a monastery near by, and thinking it all over. Yes, in those few weeks I had grown to love her, even though she undoubtedly was in possession of some strange if not guilty secret. Yet how could I reveal my heart to her while recollections of poor Guy still, filled her mind? No, I must wait and watch in patience, my heart tortured constantly by the burning fires of unspoken love.