My studies had temporarily led me into a by-path, and apprehending that a great international struggle was imminent, I had turned my investigations in a new direction.  My great work, whose publication would have shattered so many scientific idols, was complete.  The life history of Nahemah had crowned my inquiries into the embryology, physiology and psychology of psycho-hybrids.  In fact, the presence of my strange protegee promised to become something of an incubus.  Later, I was to realize that she was an ever-present means of renewing those funds which the costly character of my new studies absorbed at rather an alarming rate.  Perhaps I neglected my self-imposed task of studying the mental and physical development of Nahemah; for, I must admit that lost in my new work I presently awakened to the fact that she had outgrown the control which I had formerly exercised over her.

There were unpleasant episodes.  For example, in spite of those precautions which I adopted, and of the ceaseless vigilance of Cassim, the existence of a female inmate of the Bell House was soon a popular scandal throughout Upper Crossleys.  For this I cared nothing; but far more perturbing was Nahemah’s behavior on the occasion of a certain visit of Sir Burnham’s legal adviser to Friar’s Park.

In some way she secretly gained admission to the house (the episode occurred during that Sothic month whose annual coming I had learned to dread).  Sir Burnham actually saw her in the chapel.  He sent a messenger post-haste to the Bell-House, and I finally discovered Nahemah in hiding and insisted upon her immediate return.  This was only one of several instances of her perverse behavior, which truly seemed to be inspired by some demon bent upon the destruction of both of us.

Her mental activity was extraordinary, and unknown to me she had followed my new researches with that intellectual ardor which she directly inherited from the Coverlys.  Her ferocious jealousy of any infringement upon those family rights denied her by her father had also developed, it seemed; and one night, shortly after the scene to which I have referred, entering my study she placed before me a proposal to which I listened with absolute horror.

I should explain that Sir Burnham, placing the repute of his house and that of his heir above all other considerations (with one possible exception:  the necessity for concealing the appalling truth from his wife) had consented to make arrangements for the support of Nahemah on the understanding that her existence was to remain a profound secret from the world.  It was upon this understanding that I leased the Bell House.  And although, in certain wild indiscretions, I had recognized in Nahemah the symptoms of revolt against such a monastic existence, because of absorption in my new studies I had not realized how deep was her resentment of this enforced anonymity.  Certainly I had never grasped the power and the depth of her hatred of her brother, Roger Coverly.