“Moreover, when I took up a pencil in obedience to an impulse to
sketch—a talent not normally mine—I found that I could draw nothing but
heads, nothing, in fact, but one head—always the same—the head of a
dark-skinned woman, with huge and terrible features and a very drooping
left eye; and so well drawn, too, that I was amazed, as you may
imagine—”

“And the expression of the face—?”

Pender hesitated a moment for words, casting about with his hands in
the air and hunching his shoulders. A perceptible shudder ran over him. “What I can only describe as—_blackness_,” he replied in a low tone;
“the face of a dark and evil soul.”

“You destroyed that, too?” queried the doctor sharply. “No; I have kept the drawings,” he said, with a laugh, and rose to get
them from a drawer in the writing-desk behind him. “Here is all that remains of the pictures, you see,” he added, pushing
a number of loose sheets under the doctor’s eyes; “nothing but a few
scrawly lines. That’s all I found the next morning. I had really drawn
no heads at all—nothing but those lines and blots and wriggles. The
pictures were entirely subjective, and existed only in my mind which
constructed them out of a few wild strokes of the pen. Like the altered
scale of space and time it was a complete delusion. These all passed,
of course, with the passing of the drug’s effects. But the other thing
did not pass. I mean, the presence of that Dark Soul remained with me. It is here still. It is real. I don’t know how I can escape from it.”

“It is attached to the house, not to you personally. You must leave the
house.”

“Yes. Only I cannot afford to leave the house, for my work is my sole
means of support, and—well, you see, since this change I cannot even
write. They are horrible, these mirthless tales I now write, with their
mockery of laughter, their diabolical suggestion. Horrible? I shall go
mad if this continues.”

He screwed his face up and looked about the room as though he expected
to see some haunting shape. “This influence in this house induced by my experiment, has killed in a
flash, in a sudden stroke, the sources of my humour, and though I still
go on writing funny tales—I have a certain name you know—my inspiration
has dried up, and much of what I write I have to burn—yes, doctor, to
burn, before any one sees it.”

“As utterly alien to your own mind and personality?”

“Utterly! As though some one else had written it—”

“Ah!”

“And shocking!” He passed his hand over his eyes a moment and let the
breath escape softly through his teeth. “Yet most damnably clever in
the consummate way the vile suggestions are insinuated under cover of a
kind of high drollery. My stenographer left me of course—and I’ve been
afraid to take another—”

John Silence got up and began to walk about the room leisurely without
speaking; he appeared to be examining the pictures on the wall and
reading the names of the books lying about. Presently he paused on the
hearthrug, with his back to the fire, and turned to look his patient
quietly in the eyes. Pender’s face was grey and drawn; the hunted
expression dominated it; the long recital had told upon him. “Thank you, Mr. Pender,” he said, a curious glow showing about his
fine, quiet face; “thank you for the sincerity and frankness of your
account. But I think now there is nothing further I need ask you.” He
indulged in a long scrutiny of the author’s haggard features drawing
purposely the man’s eyes to his own and then meeting them with a look
of power and confidence calculated to inspire even the feeblest soul
with courage. “And, to begin with,” he added, smiling pleasantly, “let
me assure you without delay that you need have no alarm, for you are no
more insane or deluded than I myself am—”

Pender heaved a deep sigh and tried to return the smile. “—and this is simply a case, so far as I can judge at present, of a
very singular psychical invasion, and a very sinister one, too, if you
perhaps understand what I mean—”

“It’s an odd expression; you used it before, you know,” said the author
wearily, yet eagerly listening to every word of the diagnosis, and
deeply touched by the intelligent sympathy which did not at once
indicate the lunatic asylum. “Possibly,” returned the other, “and an odd affliction, too, you’ll
allow, yet one not unknown to the nations of antiquity, nor to those
moderns, perhaps, who recognise the freedom of action under certain
pathogenic conditions between this world and another.”

“And you think,” asked Pender hastily, “that it is all primarily due to
the _Cannabis_? There is nothing radically amiss with myself—nothing
incurable, or—?”

“Due entirely to the overdose,” Dr. Silence replied emphatically, “to
the drug’s direct action upon your psychical being. It rendered you
ultra-sensitive and made you respond to an increased rate of vibration. And, let me tell you, Mr. Pender, that your experiment might have had
results far more dire. It has brought you into touch with a somewhat
singular class of Invisible, but of one, I think, chiefly human in
character. You might, however, just as easily have been drawn out of
human range altogether, and the results of such a contingency would
have been exceedingly terrible. Indeed, you would not now be here to
tell the tale. I need not alarm you on that score, but mention it as a
warning you will not misunderstand or underrate after what you have
been through. “You look puzzled. You do not quite gather what I am driving at; and it
is not to be expected that you should, for you, I suppose, are the
nominal Christian with the nominal Christian’s lofty standard of
ethics, and his utter ignorance of spiritual possibilities. Beyond a
somewhat childish understanding of ‘spiritual wickedness in high
places,’ you probably have no conception of what is possible once you
break-down the slender gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and
that Outer World. But my studies and training have taken me far outside
these orthodox trips, and I have made experiments that I could scarcely
speak to you about in language that would be intelligible to you.”

He paused a moment to note the breathless interest of Pender’s face and
manner. Every word he uttered was calculated; he knew exactly the value
and effect of the emotions he desired to waken in the heart of the
afflicted being before him. “And from certain knowledge I have gained through various experiences,”
he continued calmly, “I can diagnose your case as I said before to be
one of psychical invasion.”

“And the nature of this—er—invasion?” stammered the bewildered writer
of humorous tales. “There is no reason why I should not say at once that I do not yet
quite know,” replied Dr. Silence. “I may first have to make one or two
experiments—”

“On me?” gasped Pender, catching his breath. “Not exactly,” the doctor said, with a grave smile, “but with your
assistance, perhaps.