of my vision.
She was there, but I could not rise and find her. She was opposite my
eyes, but my promise forbade me to touch the lamp and see her.

"Who are 'we'?" I slowly followed her last sentence.

A sigh answered me. On the silence, a memory floated to me of the story
she had told while I held her prisoner that first night:

"_The woman sits in her low chair. The fire-shine is bright in her eyes
and in her hair. On either side, her hair flows down to the floor._"

Yes, by legend young witches had such hair; sylphs, undines and all of
the airy race of Lilith. I thrust absurdities away from me and offered a
quotation to fill the pause:

"'I met a lady in the meads'
'Full beautiful; a faery's child.'
'Her hair was long, her foot was light,'
'And her eyes were wild.'"

She did not laugh, or put away the suggestion. When I had decided that
she did not mean to reply, and was seeking my mind for new speech to
detain her with me, she finally spoke what seemed another quotation:

"'A spirit--one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither
departed souls nor angels; concerning whom Josephus and Michael Psellus
of Constantinople may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is
no climate or element without one or more.' Have you read the writings
of the learned Jew or of the Platonist, you who are so very bold?"

"Neither," I meekly admitted. "But neither ancient gentleman could
convince me that you are unhuman."

Her answer was just audible:

"Not I--but, It!"

Now I was silenced, for dreadful and uncanny was that whisper in the
dark to a man who had met here in this room What I had met.

"Tell me more of this Thing without a name," I urged, mastering my
reluctance to evoke even the idea of what the blood curdled to recall.
"Why does It hate me?"

"What can I tell you? Even in your world, does not evil hate good as
naturally as good recoils from evil? But this One has another cause
also!" She hesitated. "And you yourself? How have you challenged and
mocked It this very night? Here, where It glooms, you have dared bring
the high joy of the artist who creates? Oh, brave, brave!--he who could
await alone the visit of the Unspeakable, in the chamber into which the
Loathsome Eyes have looked, and write the music of hope and beauty!"

I started, with a hot rush of surprise and pleasure. She had heard my
work. She approved it. More than that, not to her was I the lame fellow
who ought to