Nor was her appetite any better. She sat watching me with the look of a stricken animal in her blue eyes. The tender mouth was trembling pitifully, and every now and then I saw her eyes glisten brightly.
What was the matter with Ethel I could not make out. Why could not she be bright and cheerful as she always was ?
But when I rose from the table and, staggering to a couch, threw myself down to sleep, I saw her take out her handkerchief and bury her face in it, while great sobs shook her frame.
I remained on the couch until the early morning hours, when, sober and with a bitter loathing in my soul for myself and life, I crept up to bed. Ethel was lying asleep, the tremulous look about her mouth and the long lashes wet with recent tears. I dared not in my pollution lay myself beside her, so with a rug I curled myself on the sofa, to doze fitfully and to dream until daylight of fiends issuing from the mouth of a gigantic bottle.
The next morning was a time of bitter humiliation for me, and it must have held a torture far worse for my lovely young wife. When I awoke from the deep slumber into which, with the first approach of grey dawn, I had sunk I was alone. I looked at the clock. Half-past eight. Time I was away. What had kept me ? Why had I lain on the sofa ? Then with a flash that left me stunned and helpless, it came back to me—that and more. Not only the effect did I remember, the cause was clear and vivid. I saw now too clearly the reason of that vague dread of an unknown something that had possessed me. This was the elusive horror that my mind had been chasing in a vain endeavour to grasp and realise—this, to be possessed of a fiend, of a devil, as surely as the Galilean of old, of whose aberration we used to read with a smile, as being but an empty figure of speech. And I had deliberately walked into the trap; nay, more, had myself forged the chains wherewith I was to be bound on the wheel and broken.
Bitterly I cursed the inquisitive folly that had urged me into allowing him to practise his black art upon me a second time, and had assisted him in his vileness by my own blind experiments. The man dominated my entire being. He was my master in spirit; he had the power to project himself into my body and take command of it. I felt, as I passed my hands to my throbbing temples, that I was at the beck and call of this unscrupulous scoundrel. He could make me come when he willed it, could make me do as he willed; nay, more, he could make me think as he willed, or, worse, could think for me and make my body act on the decisions of his mind.
Fool that I was! I had walked blindly into the pitfall—had calmly surrendered myself to the claws of the tiger; and this had been the culmination ! The culmination! The end! Was this the end? Would the devil be satisfied with this one disgrace ? Might he not make me repeat the shameful performance in public as well as to break the heart of my poor wife ?
What was yet to come ? But I would fight against it I told myself fiercely. With every atom of my intellect, with every nerve and fibre of my being, I would fight against it. And I must succeed. If there is a God in heaven He must help one of His creatures to regain his independence. He could not stand coldly aside and permit such a frightful wrong. Fight! Fight! Fight! That was my only hope, and with the depth of my resolution my soul grew stronger, and the future assumed a rosier hue. Alas! I little dreamed, as I dressed and went downstairs, what my tortured spirit had yet to go through.
I met Ethel at the breakfast table, her eyes red with weeping and her lips quivering. Perhaps her woman's intuition warned her that this was but the first step on the downward path. Ah, but she did not guess the force that had thrust me relentlessly forward into that state of bestial intoxication, I who had never touched liquor of any sort before! And I did not tell her, made no attempt to excuse myself, but sat there like a whipped cur,
What was the matter with Ethel I could not make out. Why could not she be bright and cheerful as she always was ?
But when I rose from the table and, staggering to a couch, threw myself down to sleep, I saw her take out her handkerchief and bury her face in it, while great sobs shook her frame.
I remained on the couch until the early morning hours, when, sober and with a bitter loathing in my soul for myself and life, I crept up to bed. Ethel was lying asleep, the tremulous look about her mouth and the long lashes wet with recent tears. I dared not in my pollution lay myself beside her, so with a rug I curled myself on the sofa, to doze fitfully and to dream until daylight of fiends issuing from the mouth of a gigantic bottle.
The next morning was a time of bitter humiliation for me, and it must have held a torture far worse for my lovely young wife. When I awoke from the deep slumber into which, with the first approach of grey dawn, I had sunk I was alone. I looked at the clock. Half-past eight. Time I was away. What had kept me ? Why had I lain on the sofa ? Then with a flash that left me stunned and helpless, it came back to me—that and more. Not only the effect did I remember, the cause was clear and vivid. I saw now too clearly the reason of that vague dread of an unknown something that had possessed me. This was the elusive horror that my mind had been chasing in a vain endeavour to grasp and realise—this, to be possessed of a fiend, of a devil, as surely as the Galilean of old, of whose aberration we used to read with a smile, as being but an empty figure of speech. And I had deliberately walked into the trap; nay, more, had myself forged the chains wherewith I was to be bound on the wheel and broken.
Bitterly I cursed the inquisitive folly that had urged me into allowing him to practise his black art upon me a second time, and had assisted him in his vileness by my own blind experiments. The man dominated my entire being. He was my master in spirit; he had the power to project himself into my body and take command of it. I felt, as I passed my hands to my throbbing temples, that I was at the beck and call of this unscrupulous scoundrel. He could make me come when he willed it, could make me do as he willed; nay, more, he could make me think as he willed, or, worse, could think for me and make my body act on the decisions of his mind.
Fool that I was! I had walked blindly into the pitfall—had calmly surrendered myself to the claws of the tiger; and this had been the culmination ! The culmination! The end! Was this the end? Would the devil be satisfied with this one disgrace ? Might he not make me repeat the shameful performance in public as well as to break the heart of my poor wife ?
What was yet to come ? But I would fight against it I told myself fiercely. With every atom of my intellect, with every nerve and fibre of my being, I would fight against it. And I must succeed. If there is a God in heaven He must help one of His creatures to regain his independence. He could not stand coldly aside and permit such a frightful wrong. Fight! Fight! Fight! That was my only hope, and with the depth of my resolution my soul grew stronger, and the future assumed a rosier hue. Alas! I little dreamed, as I dressed and went downstairs, what my tortured spirit had yet to go through.
I met Ethel at the breakfast table, her eyes red with weeping and her lips quivering. Perhaps her woman's intuition warned her that this was but the first step on the downward path. Ah, but she did not guess the force that had thrust me relentlessly forward into that state of bestial intoxication, I who had never touched liquor of any sort before! And I did not tell her, made no attempt to excuse myself, but sat there like a whipped cur,
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