Free The vampire nemesis and other weird stories of the China coast by Dolly Page B

the iris of a cat contract when brought from darkness into a brilliant light.

    I felt his power over me slipping away and my own will beginning, very faintly at first, to assert itself. He felt the waning of his strength, too, and strove desperately to regain the ground he was losing.
    " You hound! " I cried, marvelling at my own temerity while yet the words passed my lips, "This is your doing!"
    " My doing ? My dear fellow"—he was still cool and collected, and spoke with the same bitter sneer —" I quite fail to see wherein I am responsible for your erratic doings. And yet I suppose it is my fault—a fault of omission. Still," he added ironically, " one would hardly expect me to go very far out of my way to keep an ungrateful friend sober for the sake of preserving the connubial concord."
    " You cursed devil!" I cried again, this time feeling more emboldened. " You know that it is your vile machinations that have forced me to drink against my will."
    " My dear Keith! "—he raised his eyebrows in well-simulated astonishment—" surely you are not quite yourself. Consider; were anyone to hear you say such an absurd thing they might insinuate you were demented."
    " I know! I know ! " I answered. "And if I go mad, if there is a God above us, the cause will be judged to you."

    The white lips drew back from his teeth in a smile that resembled the snarl of a savage beast.
    " Ah, I think I said I would make you both suffer!—and somebody was kind enough to deride the idea. We must try now what we can do with Mrs. Keith—the charming Ethel!"
    At the mention of my sweet Ethel's name, I blazed out in sudden fury, and the intensity of my passion helped to throw off the last vestige of his dominating will. I advanced a step nearer him.
    " Have a care, Rawdon," I said hoarsely. " You have me more or less in your viperous toils; but by the God in Heaven, if harm comes to Ethel, I will never allow myself a moment's rest so long as you are in this world, if I have to drag you down to hell in my own arms! "
    I was at bay and desperate, and he cowered away from the menace in my eyes, sinking back limply on the seat. Man to man, I was vastly Arnold Rawdon's superior in physical strength, and he knew it. He knew too, as I was beginning to feel, that for the time his power was in abeyance, crushed down by the strength of my passion.
    For the moment I was master of the situation, and while I still could do it I turned swiftly and made my way blindly out of the gardens, and along Broadway to my home.
    I reached the house sanguine and cheerfull Surely in that struggle I had at last broken away from the spell that had been cast over me. Already I saw my life, that had been so grimly lurid, opening out in new vistas of peace and happiness. Oh, was ever the divine gift of freewill dearer, more precious than it seemed to me at that moment, after thinking I had for ever lost it!

    Looking back, I see now with what resiliency the mind is apt to spring back to hope and buoyancy the instant the pressure is removed. Crushed though the spirit appears beneath the weight, at the first respite it is ready to leap up and fancy that because the sun is shining and the stars invisible, they do not exist.
    Rawdon, I remembered with a thrill of thankfulness, had been plainly cowed by my threatening demeanour. He would not dare now to goad me further to desperation.
    As day after day passed, and my will remained my own to guide my actions as I chose, I was filled with deep gratitude for my release from the talons of this fiend in human shape. Thus I soothed my soul with specious comfort, nor dreamed that my tormentor was but fostering his dissipated mental energy.
    I did not gauge the black depths of Rawdon's malignant soul. I did not know how dear to the hypnotist was his power, so dear as to make him wish to exercise it at all risks. But I was to find out. My God! I was to find that in the midst of my fancied security I was as heavily fettered at if bound