lgent man may sometimes perform a
single prodigious feat of strength. Wherein they have an infinite
advantage over the far flabbier resolutions of a self-indulgent man. And
Frederik Grimm's weak, atrophied better self was not equal to the strain
thrown upon it.

At the stair-foot, his step faltered. He halted irresolutely, while the
Dead Man watched him in an anguish of hope and fear.

Then came surrender to long habit; and with it a gush of weak rage. Not
at himself. He had not the strength left for that. But at the cause of
his distress. He brought down his fist upon the desk with a resounding
thwack. His eye fell on the open page with its pathetic scrawl of
appeal.

"Damn her!" he growled, snatching up the letter and tearing it across
and across. "I wish to God I'd never seen her!"

Peter Grimm gazed down upon him with eyes wherein lurked a slowly rising
fire.

"Frederik Grimm!" commanded the Dead Man. "Get up! Stand up before me!
Stand up, I say!"

Frederik made as though to rise, then swore under his breath and sat
down again.

"Stand up!" flashed the Dead Man.

Frederik got shamblingly to his feet, and looked around with a frown, as
though wondering why he had risen. His gaze swept the desk for some
cause for his action, then rested moodily on the dying embers in the
hearth.

The Dead Man at the far side of the desk confronted him like some
unearthly Judge from whose heart pity, humanity, and all else but
righteous wrath were banished.

"You shall not have my little girl!" thundered Peter Grimm. "I have come
back to take her away from you. And you cannot put me to rest. I have
come back. You cannot drive me from your thoughts."

He touched Frederik's damp forehead with his forefinger.

"I am _there_," he said. "I am looking over your shoulder as you read or
write or think. I am looking in at the window when you deem you are
alone and unseen. _I have come back._ You are breathing me in the air. I
am hammering at your heart in each of your pulse beats. Wherever you
are, I am there."

His forced calmness gave way to a gust of helpless rage as he felt his
words falling upon world-deafened ears.

"Hear me!" he commanded furiously. "_Hear_ me! You _shall_ hear me!"

At each frenzied repetition of the command, the Dead Man hurled his arms
aloft and brought down his clenched fist with all his power upon the
desk in mighty blows of utterly soundless violence.

Impotently he cried aloud:

"Oh, will _