This point was, I think, for me the climax of feeling in the whole experience; I was incapable of any further sensation—­that is any further sensation in the same direction.  But here the abominable character of the affair showed itself most plainly, for it suddenly presented an entirely new aspect to me.  The light fell on the picture from a new angle, and galvanised me into a fresh ability to feel when I thought a merciful numbness had supervened.  It may not sound a great deal in the printed letter, but it came to me almost as if it had been an extension of consciousness, for the Hand that held the pencil suddenly touched in with ghastly effect of contrast the element of the ludicrous.  Nothing could have been worse just then.  Shorthouse, the masterful spirit, so intrepid in the affairs of ordinary life, whose power increased rather than lessened in the face of danger—­this man, creeping on hands and knees along a rafter in a barn at three o’clock in the morning, watching me all the time as a cat watches a mouse!  Yes, it was distinctly ludicrous, and while it gave me a measure with which to gauge the dread emotion that caused his aberration, it stirred somewhere deep in my interior the strings of an empty laughter.

One of those moments then came to me that are said to come sometimes under the stress of great emotion, when in an instant the mind grows dazzlingly clear.  An abnormal lucidity took the place of my confusion of thought, and I suddenly understood that the two dreams which I had taken for nightmares must really have been sent me, and that I had been allowed for one moment to look over the edge of what was to come; the Good was helping, even when the Evil was most determined to destroy.

I saw it all clearly now.  Shorthouse had overrated his strength.  The terror inspired by his first visit to the barn (when he had failed) had roused the man’s whole nature to win, and he had brought me to divert the deadly stream of evil.  That he had again underrated the power against him was apparent as soon as he entered the barn, and his wild talk, and refusal to admit what he felt, were due to this desire not to acknowledge the insidious fear that was growing in his heart.  But, at length, it had become too strong.  He had left my side in my sleep—­had been overcome himself, perhaps, first in his sleep, by the dreadful impulse.  He knew that I should interfere, and with every movement he made, he watched me steadily, for the mania was upon him and he was determined to hang himself.  He pretended not to hear me calling, and I knew that anything coming between him and his purpose would meet the full force of his fury—­the fury of a maniac, of one, for the time being, truly possessed.

For a minute or two I sat there and stared.  I saw then for the first time that there was a bit of rope trailing after him, and that this was what made the rustling sound I had noticed.  Shorthouse, too, had come to a stop.  His body lay along the rafter like a crouching animal.  He was looking hard at me.  That whitish patch was his face.