sing-table regarding himself
in the mirror. The door was locked, as usual. I knew at once it was the
Listener, and the blood turned to ice in my veins. Such a wave of horror
and dread swept over me that it seemed to turn me rigid in the bed, and
I could neither move nor speak. I noted, however, that the odour I so
abhorred was strong in the room.

The man seemed to be tall and broad. He was stooping forward over the
mirror. His back was turned to me, but in the glass I saw the reflection
of a huge head and face illumined fitfully by the flicker of the
night-light. The spectral gray of very early morning stealing in round
the edges of the curtains lent an additional horror to the picture, for
it fell upon the hair that was tawny and mane-like, hanging about a face
whose swollen, rugose features bore the once seen never forgotten
leonine expression of--I dare not write down that awful word. But, by
way of corroborative proof, I saw in the faint mingling of the two
lights that there were several bronze-coloured blotches on the cheeks
which the man was evidently examining with great care in the glass. The
lips were pale and very thick and large. One hand I could not see, but
the other rested on the ivory back of my hair-brush. Its muscles were
strangely contracted, the fingers thin to emaciation, the back of the
hand closely puckered up. It was like a big gray spider crouching to
spring, or the claw of a great bird.

The full realization that I was alone in the room with this nameless
creature, almost within arm's reach of him, overcame me to such a degree
that, when he suddenly turned and regarded me with small beady eyes,
wholly out of proportion to the grandeur of their massive setting, I sat
bolt upright in bed, uttered a loud cry, and then fell back in a dead
swoon of terror upon the bed.

* * * * *

Dec. 6.-- ... When I came to this morning, the first thing I noticed was
that my clothes were strewn all over the floor.... I find it difficult
to put my thoughts together, and have sudden accesses of violent
trembling. I determined that I would go at once to Chapter's hotel and
find out when he is expected. I cannot refer to what happened in the
night; it is too awful, and I have to keep my thoughts rigorously away
from it. I feel lightheaded and queer, couldn't eat any breakfast, and
have twice vomited with blood. While dressing to go out, a hansom
rattled up noisily over the cobbles, a