The house was never again visited by the Dark Presence. Phantom or fancy, the horror was gone as if it never had brooded about the place. Desire Locke is a fatal companion only to my heart.
But whether all this is so because the lake is drained and the Shetland pony of a young Vere browses over the green pasture that was once a miasmic swamp; or whether it is so for more subtle, wilder reasons, no one can say. I, recalling that colossal Barrier I visioned as closed and a certain cleaving arrow of light, must at least call the coincidence amazing.
As I have said, my wife and I, Ethan Vere and Bagheera the cat have an understanding between us.