this was no longer Reginald!

It was all brain ... only brain ... a tremendous brain-machine ...
infinitely complex ... infinitely strong. Not more than a mile away
Ethel endeavoured to call to him through the night. The telephone rang,
once, twice, thrice, insistingly. But Ernest heard it not. Something
dragged him ... dragged the nerves from his body dragged, dragged,
dragged.... It was an irresistible suction ... pitiless ... passionless
... immense.

Sparks, blue, crimson and violet, seemed to play around the living
battery. It reached the finest fibres of his mind.... Slowly ... every
trace of mentality disappeared.... First the will ... then feeling ...
judgment ... memory ... fear even.... All that was stored in his
brain-cells came forth to be absorbed by that mighty engine....

The Princess With the Yellow Veil appeared ... flitted across the room
and melted away. She was followed by childhood memories ... girls'
heads, boys' faces.... He saw his dead mother waving her arms to him....
An expression of death-agony distorted the placid features.... Then,
throwing a kiss to him, she, too, disappeared. Picture on picture
followed.... Words of love that he had spoken ... sins, virtues,
magnanimities, meannesses, terrors ... mathematical formulas even, and
snatches of songs. Leontina came and was swallowed up.... No, it was
Ethel who was trying to speak to him ... trying to warn.... She waved
her hands in frantic despair.... She was gone.... A pale face ... dark,
dishevelled hair.... Jack.... How he had changed! He was in the circle
of the vampire's transforming might. "Jack," he cried. Surely Jack had
something to explain ... something to tell him ... some word that if
spoken would bring rest to his soul. He saw the words rise to the boy's
lips, but before he had time to utter them his image also had vanished.
And Reginald ... Reginald, too, was gone.... There was only the mighty
brain ... panting ... whirling.... Then there was nothing.... The
annihilation of Ernest Fielding was complete.

Vacantly he stared at the walls, at the room and at his master. The
latter was wiping the sweat from his forehead. He breathed deeply....
The flush of youth spread over his features.... His eyes sparkled with a
new and dangerous brilliancy.... He took the thing that had once been
Ernest Fielding by the hand and led it to its room.

XXXI

With the first flush of the morning Ethel appeared at the door of the
house o