presently she observed that his eyes were no longer closed, but were open and looking steadily at the brass knob at the foot of his bed on which a sunbeam, entering through a chink at the side of the drawn windowblind made a focus of light. And, all at once, she guessed that he was looking at this with purpose, and her soul, sword in hand, crouched ready to spring. Then from the bed came Archie's voice.
"Martin," it said.
There was a dead silence, and she saw forming in the air a little in front of him a nucleus of mist. It gathered volume from a little jet as of steam that appeared to come from Archie himself. Thicker and thicker it grew; strange lines began to interlace themselves within it, and these took form. The dimness of its outline grew firm and distinct, the shape stood detached and clear, and, bending over Archie with a smile triumphant and cruel, stood the semblance she had seen once before at midnight in Archie's room. He was no longer looking at the knob at the foot of his bed, but with eyes wide open and blank with some nameless terror he gazed at the apparition.
Jessie rose and stood opposite it on the other side of his bed. Her two-edged sword was drawn now, and its bright blade gleamed in the darkness of the evil that flooded the room. And then it seemed that that incarnation of it that stood beside Archie's bed was aware, for it turned and looked her full in the face, bringing to bear on her the utmost of its hellish potency.
For one moment against that awful assault her soul cried out in panic. It had not dreamed that from all the crimes with which the world had withered and bled there could be distilled a tincture so poisonous. And then her love rallied her scattered courage, and she stood firm again. Nothing in the world but love and prayer could prevail, but nothing, if once she could fully realize that, could prevail against them. In her
