4 P. M. No, he cannot.  I have talked with him, and he showed such surprise at the first words in which I tried to express my unspeakable secret that I went no further.  As far as I can gather (by hints and inferences rather than by any statement), his own experience was limited to some words or looks such as I have myself endured.  His abandonment of Miss Penclosa is in itself a sign that he was never really in her toils.  Oh, if he only knew his escape!  He has to thank his phlegmatic Saxon temperament for it.  I am black and Celtic, and this hag’s clutch is deep in my nerves.  Shall I ever get it out?  Shall I ever be the same man that I was just one short fortnight ago?

Let me consider what I had better do.  I cannot leave the university in the middle of the term.  If I were free, my course would be obvious.  I should start at once and travel in Persia.  But would she allow me to start?  And could her influence not reach me in Persia, and bring me back to within touch of her crutch?  I can only find out the limits of this hellish power by my own bitter experience.  I will fight and fight and fight—­and what can I do more?

I know very well that about eight o’clock to-night that craving for her society, that irresistible restlessness, will come upon me.  How shall I overcome it?  What shall I do?  I must make it impossible for me to leave the room.  I shall lock the door and throw the key out of the window.  But, then, what am I to do in the morning?  Never mind about the morning.  I must at all costs break this chain which holds me.

April 9.  Victory!  I have done splendidly!  At seven o’clock last night I took a hasty dinner, and then locked myself up in my bedroom and dropped the key into the garden.  I chose a cheery novel, and lay in bed for three hours trying to read it, but really in a horrible state of trepidation, expecting every instant that I should become conscious of the impulse.  Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and I awoke this morning with the feeling that a black nightmare had been lifted off me.  Perhaps the creature realized what I had done, and understood that it was useless to try to influence me.  At any rate, I have beaten her once, and if I can do it once, I can do it again.

It was most awkward about the key in the morning.  Luckily, there was an under-gardener below, and I asked him to throw it up.  No doubt he thought I had just dropped it.  I will have doors and windows screwed up and six stout men to hold me down in my bed before I will surrender myself to be hag-ridden in this way.

I had a note from Mrs. Marden this afternoon asking me to go round and see her.  I intended to do so in any case, but had not excepted to find bad news waiting for me.  It seems that the Armstrongs, from whom Agatha has expectations, are due home from Adelaide in the Aurora, and that they have written to Mrs. Marden and her to meet them in town.  They will probably be away for a month or six weeks, and, as the Aurora is due on Wednesday, they must go at once—­to-morrow, if they are ready in time.  My consolation is that when we meet again there will be no more parting between Agatha and me.