Then, suddenly, she saw, and let go, and dropped, crouching on the floor and trying to cover herself. This time she had given no cry.
The phantasm gave way; it moved slowly towards the door, and as it went it looked back over its shoulder at Marston, it trailed a hand, signalling to him to come.
He went out after it, hardly aware of Pauline’s naked body that still writhed there, clutching at his feet as they passed, and drew itself after him, like a worm, like a beast, along the floor.
... drew itself after him along the floor.
She must have got up at once and followed them out on to the landing; for, as he went down the stairs behind the phantasm, he could see Pauline’s face, distorted with lust and terror, peering at them above the stairhead. She saw them descend the last flight, and cross the hall at the bottom and go into the library. The door shut behind them.
Something happened in there. Marston never told me precisely what it was, and I didn’t ask him. Anyhow, that finished it.
The next day Pauline ran away to her own people. She couldn’t stay in Marston’s house because it was haunted by Rosamund, and he wouldn’t leave it for the same reason.
And she never came back; for she was not only afraid of Rosamund, she was afraid of Marston. And if she had come it wouldn’t have been any good. Marston was convinced that, as often as he attempted to get to Pauline, something would stop him. Pauline certainly felt that, if Rosamund were pushed to it, she might show herself in some still more sinister and terrifying form. She knew when she was beaten.
And there was more in it than that. I believe he tried to explain it to her; said he had married her on the assumption that Rosamund was dead, but that now he knew she was alive; she was, as he put it, “there.” He tried to make her see that if he had Rosamund he couldn’t have her. Rosamund’s presence in the world annulled their contract.