voice.

"Fear!" said Stepton, clearing his throat with a loud, rasping noise.

"Whenever I was with Marcus Harding in any public place I was now
companioned by fear. I dreaded unspeakably lest others should begin to
see what I saw. When he preached, I could hardly sit to listen: I felt
as if any shame falling upon him would overwhelm me also. I strove in
vain to combat this strange, this, then, inexplicable sensation. With
every sitting this terror grew upon me. It tortured me. It obsessed me.
It drove me into action. When I was with my rector, I tried perpetually
to prevent him from exposing his true self to the world, by changing
the conversation, by attenuating his remarks, by covering up his actions
with my own, sometimes even by a brusque interruption. But in the pulpit
he escaped from me. I was forced to sit silent and to listen while he
preached doctrine in which he had no belief, and put forward theories
of salvation, redemption by faith, and the like, which meant less than
nothing to him. Finding this presently unendurable by me, I strove to
govern him mentally when he was in the pulpit, to track him, as it were,
with my mind, to head him off with my mind when he was beginning to take
the wrong path."

"Did you succeed in that effort?" interrupted the professor.

"I made an impression, a terrible impression, upon him. I almost broke
him down. I sapped his self-confidence. His power as a preacher deserted
him, as his power outside the pulpit deserted him. With every day I felt
that I saw more clearly into every recess, every cranny, of his mind and
nature. Just at first this frightfully clear sight was mine only when we
were sitting; but presently it was mine whenever I was with him. And he
knew it, and went in fear of me. Gradually, very gradually, it came about
that our former positions were reversed; for as he sank down in the human
scale, I mounted. As he lost in power, I gained. And especially in the
pulpit I felt that now I had force, that I could grip my hearers, could
make a mighty impression upon those with whom I was brought into contact.

"But I must tell you that now I gained no satisfaction from my own
improvement, if so it may be called. My whole life was vitiated by my
secret terror lest Marcus Harding should be found out, should ever be
known for what he was. His actions, and even his thoughts, affected me
with an intimacy that was inexplicable."

"You were in telepathic communication with h