had not spoken of this, I met his gaze.

"Yes. Did you see----"

"Nothing, exactly. Something, though! Like--well, like something pouring
itself along; a big, thick mass. Something sort of smooth and
glistening; like black, oily molasses slipping over. Only alive,
somehow; drawing coils of itself out of the dark into the dark. I can't
put it very plain."

"What did you think?"

"The air in the room was bad and close, hard to breathe. I guessed maybe
I was a little dizzy, jumping out of bed the way I did and finding you
like dead, almost." He paused, and returned his contemplation to the
fish darting in the lake.

"That is what I thought," he concluded. "What I felt--well, it was the
kind of scare I didn't use to know you could feel outside of bad dreams;
the kind you wake up from all shaking, with your face and hands dripping
sweat. That isn't all, either!"

This time the pause was so long that I thought he did not mean to
continue.

"My excuse for speaking of such matters before Phillida is that I may
need a woman friend for Desire Michell," I reverted to the implied
rebuke I acknowledged his right to give. "I wanted her help, and yours.
More than ever, since you have shared my experience so far, I want your
advice."

"I'll be proud to give it, in a minute. First, it's only fair to say
I've felt enough wrong around here to be able to understand a lot that
once I might have laughed at. Nothing compared to you! But--I've been
working about the lake sometimes after dark or before daylight was
strong, when a kind of horror would come over me--well, I'd feel I had
to get away and into the house or go crazy. That morning when you called
from your window to ask where I'd been so early, and I told you looking
for turtles--that was one time. I had gone out looking for turtles, but
that horror drove me in. When you hailed me, I had it so bad that I
could just about make out not to run for the house like a scared cat,
yelling all the way. Turning back to the lake with you was a poser. But
I did; and the feeling was all gone as quick as it came. We had a nice
morning's shooting. Once in a while I've felt it sort of driving me
indoors when I stepped off the porch or over to the barn at night.
That's a funny thing: the fear was always outside, not in the house. I
thought of that while you were telling us how the Thing at the window
kept trying to get in at you. We haven't got a haunted house, but a
haunted place!"

"Wh