orlsover has suffered some great emotional shock.
You had better let me send someone to help you nurse him. And by all
means indulge that whim of his never to be left alone in the dark. I
would keep a light burning all night if I were you. But he _must_ have
more fresh air. It's perfectly absurd--this hatred of open windows."

Eustace, however, would have no one with him but Saunders. "I don't want
the other men," he said. "They'd smuggle it in somehow. I know they
would."

"Don't worry about it, old chap. This sort of thing can't go on
indefinitely. You know I saw it this time as well as you. It wasn't half
so active. It won't go on living much longer, especially after that
fall. I heard it hit the flags myself. As soon as you're a bit stronger
we'll leave this place; not bag and baggage, but with only the clothes
on our backs, so that it won't be able to hide anywhere. We'll escape
it that way. We won't give any address, and we won't have any parcels
sent after us. Cheer up, Eustace! You'll be well enough to leave in a
day or two. The doctor says I can take you out in a chair to-morrow."

"What have I done?" asked Eustace. "Why does it come after me? I'm no
worse than other men. I'm no worse than you, Saunders; you know I'm not.
It was you who were at the bottom of that dirty business in San Diego,
and that was fifteen years ago."

"It's not that, of course," said Saunders. "We are in the twentieth
century, and even the parsons have dropped the idea of your old sins
finding you out. Before you caught the hand in the library it was filled
with pure malevolence--to you and all mankind. After you spiked it
through with that nail it naturally forgot about other people, and
concentrated its attention on you. It was shut up in that safe, you
know, for nearly six months. That gives plenty of time for thinking of
revenge."

Eustace Borlsover would not leave his room, but he thought that there
might be something in Saunders's suggestion to leave Brighton without
notice. He began rapidly to regain his strength.

"We'll go on the first of September," he said.

* * * * *

The evening of August 31st was oppressively warm. Though at midday the
windows had been wide open, they had been shut an hour or so before
dusk. Mrs. Prince had long since ceased to wonder at the strange habits
of the gentlemen on the first floor. Soon after their arrival she had
been told to take down the heavy window cur