Page:Weird Tales v01n02 (1923-04).djvu/70

Rh ful mind surge around me again like great waves beating against a rockbound coast.

Every bit of energy I possessed was necessary to hold myself together. He caught me within the power of his will! I felt myself slipping—slipping—slipping! Everything grew black before me. I could see nothing save his eyes—burning—burning into my very soul

Like a man who is fighting an overdose of chloral, I strove to free myself from the web which his mind was weaving about me. It was of no avail. Again I felt a wave of fire shoot through my veins.

I lurched against the table. Seizing the lamp, with a final effort. I hurled it straight at the face of the mocking demon before me.

KNEW no more until I awoke in the hospital.

They say that the place Lessman called his sanitarium was burned to the ground the night before they found me wandering, almost a maniac, several miles away.

As I stated in the beginning, I am unable to distinguish between the truth and the wanderings of my diseased brain. The reader must draw his own conclusions.

What happened? Did I kill Lessman? Did he and Meta and Avis perish in the fire with the other poor unfortunates? Nobody knows.

HAVE just learned that a woman a golden-haired woman—was found a week ago in a demented condition in a far distant town. The reports say that she mumbles something about "The Bodymaster!" Can it be Avis? I leave tonight for the hospital where she is confined. If it be she, perhaps my presence will recall her to herself.