he exercised on me a degree of mesmeric force which I had never dreamed that one creature could exercise on another; but, at least, I was no longer in doubt as to whether I was or was not dead. I knew I was alive. 

 He lay, watching me, as if he was reading the thoughts which occupied my brain,—and, for all I know, he was. 

 ‘Robert Holt, you are a thief.’ 

 ‘I am not.’ 

 My own voice, as I heard it, startled me,—it was so long since it had sounded in my ears. 

 ‘You are a thief! Only thieves come through windows,—did you not come through the window?’ I was still,—what would my contradiction have availed me? ‘But it is well that you came through the window,—well you are a thief,—well for me! for me! It is you that I am wanting,—at the happy moment you have dropped yourself into my hands,—in the nick of time. For you are my slave,—at my beck and call,—my familiar spirit, to do with as I will,—you know this,—eh?’ 

 I did know it, and the knowledge of my impotence was terrible. I felt that if I could only get away from him; only release myself from the bonds with which he had bound me about; only remove myself from the horrible glamour of his near neighbourhood; only get one or two square meals and have an opportunity of recovering from the enervating stress of mental and bodily fatigue;—I felt that then I might be something like his match, and that, a second time, he would endeavour in vain to bring me within the compass of his magic. But, as it was, I was conscious that I was helpless, and the consciousness was agony. He persisted in reiterating his former falsehood. 

 ‘I say you are a thief!—a thief, Robert Holt, a thief! You came through a window for your own pleasure, now you will go through a window for mine,—not this window, but another.’ Where the jest lay I did not perceive; but it tickled him, for a grating sound came from his throat which was meant for laughter. ‘This time it is as a thief that you will go,—oh yes, be sure.’ 

 He paused, as it seemed, to transfix me with his gaze. His unblinking eyes never for an instant quitted my face. With what a frightful fascination they constrained me,—and how I loathed them! 

 When he spoke again there was a new intonation in his speech,—something bitter, cruel, unrelenting. 

 ‘Do you know Paul Lessingham?’ 

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