my other."

"How?--I killed her!--eh?--ha, ha!" he said, still edging nearer
and nearer.

"Yes; I say you!" I shouted, trembling in every joint, but
possessed by that unaccountable infatuation which has made men
invoke, spite of themselves, their own destruction, and which I was
powerless to resist--"deny it as you may, it is you who killed
her--wretch!--FIEND!--no wonder she could not stand the breath and
glare of HELL!"

"And you are one of those who believe that not a sparrow falls to the
ground without your Creator's consent," he said, with icy sarcasm; "and
this is a specimen of Christian resignation--hey? You charge his act upon
a poor fellow like me, simply that you may cheat the devil, and rave and
rebel against the decrees of heaven, under pretence of abusing me. The
breath and flare of hell!--eh? You mean that I removed this and these
(touching the covering of his mouth and eyes successively) as I _shall_
do now again, and show you there's no great harm in that."

There was a tone of menace in his concluding words not to be mistaken.

"Murderer and liar from the beginning, as you are, I defy you!" I
shouted, in a frenzy of hate and horror, stamping furiously on the floor.

As I said this, it seemed to me that he darkened and dilated before my
eyes. My senses, thoughts, consciousness, grew horribly confused, as if
some powerful, extraneous will, were seizing upon the functions of my
brain. Whether I were to be mastered by death, or madness, or possession,
I knew not; but hideous destruction of some sort was impending: all hung
upon the moment, and I cried aloud, in my agony, an adjuration in the
name of the three persons of the Trinity, that he should not torment me.

Stunned, bewildered, like a man recovered from a drunken fall, I stood,
freezing and breathless, in the same spot, looking into the room, which
wore, in my eyes, a strange, unearthly character. Mr. Smith was cowering
darkly in the window, and, after a silence, spoke to me in a croaking,
sulky tone, which was, however, unusually submissive.

"Don't it strike you as an odd procedure to break into a gentleman's
apartment at such an hour, for the purpose of railing at him in the
coarsest language? If you have any charge to make against me, do so; I
invite inquiry and defy your worst. If you think you can bring home to me
the smallest share of blame in this unlucky matter, call the coroner, and
let his inquest examine and cross-examine me, and