yself that I would cross the room and so attain my
object. I made a step and drew back, frightened by the sound of a
creaking board. Absurd! but it was quite a minute before I dared to move
another step. I had meant to walk straight across to the other door,
passing in my course close by the occupied chair. I did do not so; I
kept round by the wall, creeping on tiptoe, and my eye never leaving the
figure in the chair. I did this in spite of myself, and the manner of my
action was the first hint of my ultimate defeat.

At length I stood in the doorway leading to the bedroom. I could feel
the perspiration on my forehead and at the back of my neck. I fronted
the inscrutable white face of Lord Clarenceux, the lover of Rosetta
Rosa; I met its awful eyes: dark, invidious, fateful. Ah, those eyes!
Even in my terror I could read in them all the history and the
characteristics of Lord Clarenceux. They were the eyes of one who could
be of the highest and the lowest. Mingled in their hardness was a
melting softness, with their cruelty a large benevolence, with their
hate a pitying tenderness, with their spirituality a hellish turpitude.
They were the eyes of two opposite men, and as I gazed into them they
reconciled for me the conflicting accounts of Lord Clarenceux which I
had heard from different people.

But, as far as I was concerned, that night the eyes held nothing but
cruelty and disaster; though I could detect in them the other qualities,
these qualities were not for me. We faced each other, the apparition and
I, and the struggle, silent and bitter as the grave, began. Neither of
us moved. My arms were folded easily, but my nails pressed into the
palms of my clenched hands. My teeth were set, my lips tight together,
my glance unswerving. By sheer strength of endeavour I cast aside my
fear of defeat, and in my heart I said with the profoundest conviction
that I would love Rosa though the seven seas and all the continents give
up their dead to frighten me.

So we remained, for how long I do not know. It may have been only
minutes--I cannot tell. Then gradually there came over me a feeling that
the ghost in the chair was growing larger. The ghastly inhuman sneer on
his thin widening lips assaulted me like a giant's malediction, and the
light in the room seemed to become more brilliant till it was almost
blinding. This went on for a time, and once more I pulled myself
together, collected my scattering senses, and seized agai