Page:Richard Marsh--The goddess a demon.djvu/131

Rh understanding came, especially as I want it so much to come. I seem to be haunted; is it by a vision, or by something which really happened? I wish I could sit down and quietly think it out. If I could put the pieces of the puzzle together I might know what it means. But I can't; I'm all restless; I can't keep still.

"Why is it that I am always seeing this man lying dead upon the floor? Why do I seem to be striking at his back? It is so strange. It is not a knife I'm striking with, not a common knife; it is something different—and worse. It comes out of nothing; and, all the time, there's the noise. It is not I who make the noise, no, I don't speak—I can't—I daren't—it's It. But it keeps on strike, strike, striking, and the blood all comes upon my cloak. I know I had a cloak on, I remember how it kept getting in my way. And then—he falls. And that's all—until it begins all over again, and I am standing in a room, in the moonlight, and he sits up in bed and looks at me—he, my friend."

She held out her hands in front of her, with a pleasant inflection on the final word.

"And I can't think of what took place before. I feel that I ought to know who I am, and what brought me here; but I can't quite lay my hand on it. The people are there, but I can't quite make out their faces, or who they are, or what