"Well, that something was coming, even had actually come, into the room."
Valentine answered nothing to this, so Julian went on.
"I thought it was a trick of the nerves, and determined to drive it away, and I succeeded. And then, just as I was internally laughing at myself, this hand, as if groping about in the dark, was first laid on mine, full on it, Val, and then slid off onto the table and linked its little finger tightly in mine. I, of course, supposed the hand was yours, and this finger was crooked round mine for fully five minutes, I should say. After you spoke, thinking that you were trying to deceive me for a joke, I caught the hand in mine, and pinched it with all my strength until it was forcibly dragged away."
"Strange," Valentine murmured.
"Deucedly strange! and, what's more, diabolically unpleasant."
"I wonder what that fellow, Marr, would say to this."
"Marr! By Jove, is this one of the manifestations which he spoke about so vaguely?"
"It seems like it."
"But describe your sensations. You say you felt horribly afraid. Why was that?"
"I can't tell. That, I think, made part of the horror. There was a sort of definite vagueness, if you can imagine such a seeming contradiction, in my state of mind. But the feeling is really indescribable. That it was more strange and more terrible than anything I have known is certain. I should like to ask Dr. Levillier about all this."