on my determination to learn more of Desire
Michell before some unknown bar fell between us. I only know that I
passed into a mood of trapped exasperation at my helplessness and lack
of knowledge. It seemed imperative that I should act to save us both,
act soon and surely; yet inaction was bound upon me by my ignorance. Who
was she? Where did she live? What bond held her subject to the Thing
from the Barrier? What gates were to close between us? Why could she not
put her hand in mine, any night, and let me take her away from this
haunted place? Why, at least, not come to me in the light, and let me
see her face to face? I was a man groping in a labyrinth while outside
something precious to him is being stolen.

For the first time I found myself unable to work, unable to share our
household life with Phillida and Vere, or to find relaxation in driving
about the countryside. Anger against Desire herself stirred at the
bottom of my mind; Desire, who hampered me by the word of honor in which
she had netted me so securely.

It was then that my enemy from the unknown places began to whisper of
the book.

I encountered that enemy in a new mood. We did not meet at the breach in
the mighty wall, confronted in death conflict between Its will and mine.
Instead, night after night It crept to my window as at our first
meeting. I started awake to find Its awful presence blackening the
starlight where It crouched opposite me, Its intelligence breathing
against mine. As always, my human organism shrank from Its unhuman
neighborhood. Chill and repugnance shook my body, while that part of me
which was not body battled against nightmare paralysis of horror. But
now It did not menace or strive against me. It displayed a dreadful
suavity I might liken to the coiling and uncoiling of those great snakes
who are reported to mesmerize their prey by looping movements and
figures melting from change to change in the Hunger Dance of Kaa.

There was a book that held all I longed to know, It whispered to me. A
book telling of the woman! She did not wish me to read, for fear I
should grow overwise and make her mine. The book was here, in my house.
I might arise and find--if I would be guided by It----!

I thrust the whispers away. How could I trust my enemy? If such a book
existed, which seemed improbable, there was a taint of disloyalty to
Desire in the thought of reading without her knowledge.

The Thing was not turned away. How could I do h