et odours. So did she escape Justice,
but shall not escape Hell's Damnation and Heaven's casting out."

I closed the book and laid it down.

Reading those dim, closely printed pages had taken time. I was
astonished to find the window spaces gray with dawn, when I glanced that
way. The night was past. Neither from Desire nor from the Thing without
a name which had sent me to this book could I find out what I was
expected to glean from the narration.

My enemy had made no conditions on directing me to the book. It had
asked no price, uttered no menace. Why, then, had I so solemn a
certainty that a crisis in our affair had been reached. I had come to an
end; a corner had been turned. I had opened a door that could not be
closed. How did I know this? Why?

Why was the fog against the windows this morning so like the fog that
shrouded the unearthly sea opposite the Barrier?

By and by Cristina came downstairs and busied herself in the kitchen.
Bagheera, who had slept beside my chair all night, rose and padded out
to the region of breakfast and saucers of milk. Next, the voices of
Phillida and Vere drifted from above.

To have Phillida find me there in her sewing-room, finishing an
all-night vigil, involved too many explanations. I did an unwise thing.
From the lowest shelf of the bookcase I gathered such books as were
readable by my knowledge, and carried the armful up to my room. After a
hot bath and breakfast I would look over these companions of the New
England witch book.

CHAPTER XV

"Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft sweet woman."
--LILITH.

The fog stayed all day. The mist was so dense that it gave the effect of
a solid mass enclosing the house. No wind stirred it, no cheering beam
of sun pierced it. Through it sounds reached the ear distorted and
magnified. All day I sat in my room reading.

There are books which should not be preserved. I, who am a lover of
books, who detest any form of censorship, I do seriously set down my
belief that there exist chronicles which would be better destroyed. With
this few people will agree. My answer to them is simple: they have not
read the books I mean.

Not all the volumes from the old bookcase were of that character, of
course. Nearly all of them were well known to classical students, at
least by name. Obscure, fantastic, cast aside by the world they were,
but harmless to a